Journalist Talk Shop, Politics and Adult Media

Our editor recently sat down with Maddow to talk about the Hillary Clinton New Hampshire scandal, why we need to talk about race and how she embarrassed herself in front of Keith Olbermann…

Andrew Belonsky: I want to start with the Chris Matthews/Hillary Clinton brouhaha. As you pointed out on MSNBC, Talking Points Memo was talking about how women voted for Hillary in New Hampshire because Chris Matthews and other male news personalities were picking on her. Do you think that’s valid? Do you think that people really are swayed so easily?

Rachel Maddow: I don’t. Certainly there’s no statistical evidence to support that that’s why people unexpectedly voted for Hillary Clinton, but there’s not that much of an explanation for why Hillary Clinton defied the last two days of polling. She was ahead in New Hampshire all year – the last four days of polling for Obama were very strong, but she had been leading all year. If you actually look at the exit polls and the people who voted for her, it wasn’t people who decided the last day or the last couple of days. The people who turned out and voted for Clinton had decided, like 50% or something, had decided more than a month ago that they were going to vote for her. What made the difference is that they turned out in huge numbers. Now, could we emotionally explain that turnout as being mad at the media? Maybe. That’s what political analysis is: putting an emotional frame for which we don’t have facts.

AB: Really? You think emotion is inherent in political analysis?

RM: I think that political analysis is taking observable facts and working them into a story that makes sense to people and sticks with people. Making things into a story requires understanding people’s emotions- you not only play into people’s emotions, but you incorporate them. That leads to how you tell the story. I said that on MSNBC, because I was feeling it. I mean, I’m not a Hillary Clinton fan, but the last few days of coverage of her – once those Obama polls were coming out, there was almost glee from the 95% male newscasters. Their palatable excitement about how she was going to lose was gross. That’s the only thing that has ever made me feel sympathetic for Hillary. That clip that we all saw of her being emotional at that campaign appearance, I think it was a genuinely affecting moment for more than half the people that saw that tape, but yet more than half the time it was presented in the media, there was cynical, nasty, joy in her pain. There were white guy journalists being like, “Ha! Look at the bitch crying” or “She’s obviously faking this just to dupe stupid women voters”. The consistent mean in the media was infuriating. I felt it and I was seeing it everywhere in the blog world.

AB: I was talking to Mary Breslauer recently and we spoke about how the lines are breaking down between media and political personalities. They’re almost becoming one and the same. The definition of a politician is not necessarily someone who is elected to office. Do you think that the media has gained too much power – particularly with regard to the elections – but in shaping the zeitgeist?

RM: Well, the media has always been tremendously powerful. In historical context, it isn’t new that the media is shaping how we view people, but I think what’s happening right now is that we have newsish entertainment. We have people who are political operatives who dress up like news anchors and talk about really important political stories with some authority that they have not earned through journalistic credentials. That’s not to say that those folks shouldn’t be on tv – that’s not to say that I shouldn’t be on tv – I think there’s a love for punditry in political analysis, which is to take facts and make them understandable and help put a context and an emotional frame on what we’re seeing, so more people are compelled by the politics of the moment. It’s an important role and it’s actually, I think, a civically honorable role.

AB: I’m not sure everyone would agree with you, but I certainly do.

RM: What happens sometimes – and I think you saw this with Chris Matthews – the media tends to bandwagon. The higher the ratio of analysis to – you know, seeing five hours of cable new coverage to every AP story with one fact is a totally normal day in political news – the higher the ratio of analysis, the more likely is that the people talking about that fact are going to get on some stupid bandwagon and they’re all going to say the same thing and they’re all going to make the same point. Because it’s all white guys who are all beltway guys – the whole pundit corp is so homogenous – occasionally, especially when you’re talking about minority candidates and female candidates, their band wagon story is wrong.