Jen Psaki should replace Rachel Maddow

[WorkDoctor]

She checks all the boxes -- smart woman, media experience, thinks on her feet, capable of deeper analysis to link causes to consequences, adequately progressive, cerebral. Hope she can adopt the role of teacher to the viewing public. Lure her out of the White House before she gets worn out dueling with the idiot Fox reporter.

Second best choice: Thom Hartmann: smart, approach to issues is to teach, prolific author on variety of topics, decades of progressive media leadership

Third choice: Ali Velshi -- second best brain on the network now

Worst choices -- any news "reader" -- woman or man -- chosen obviously only to make MSNBC look "diverse"

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. I would be happy with this choice

[milestogo]

2. Jen Psaki is not a journalist.

Thom Hartmann jumped the shark a while back.

[Mosby]

5. Does it matter?

Most journalists aren't journalists, their business is entertainment.

[gab13by13]

11. I hear this all of the time but

I must respectfully disagree. Cable news anchors read from scripts, those scripts are designed to control a right wing narrative. Who controls the narrative is extremely important, that's why Democrats are behind the 8 ball since cable news is right wing.

I don't underestimate the power of the MSM and cable news, propaganda works. I am the only person I know of who calls the border wall by its correct name, a border fence. See how propaganda works?

[gab13by13]

6. Thom Hartmann would be on my list.

Have you listened to him lately? There isn't a whole lot that I disagree with Thom.

[Thunderbeast]

30. Neither is Nicole Wallace

She should also be a candidate for the 9:00 slot.

[FakeNoose]

3. Good choices - all three

Not sure if Jen Psaki would be interested ... but I agree that she'd be great.

[gab13by13]

4. I can think of numerous

MSNBC and CNN anchors that need to go and I can come up with replacements. How about bringing back Keith Olbermann and Dylan Ratigan for starters.

[DURHAM D]

7. I like Jen but

why are you trashing Rachel?

Rachel does not need to go anywhere.

Is this a guy thing?

[Merlot]

8. "Let's pit two highly successful women against each other in

a race that neither one is in."

[DURHAM D]

9. So, it is some guy thing. nt

[ShazzieB]

26. Exactly. 😡

[zipplewrath]

32. You're seeing conflict where none exsists

Rachel is cutting back, a replacement will be needed.

So, what is the basis for your misconception?

[relayerbob]

14. How is this trashing Rachel?

She is ending her nightly show within a year, a replacement needs to be determined. The OP is expressing an opinion on the replacement.

[lagomorph777]

15. Rachel is cutting back to weekly. OP is not necessarily trashing her.

Somebody has to fill in the other 4 days.

[hlthe2b]

19. Sometime in early 2022 it has been reported that Maddow's new contract calls for her to

do any number of special projects, including a long-form weekly show and to cease her nightly show. That is her choice. Just one we are acknowledging will leave a bit hole in the nightly shows. I like Lawrence. I like Brian Williams (when I am up late enough to see him). But I want a very competent and immensely watchable woman to attempt to fill the spot left when Maddow moves to her other projects.

[CrackityJones75]

28. Maybe get caught up with whats going on

Maybe get caught up with whats going on before trashing another poster.

She is discontinuing her nightly spot.

[chowder66]

10. Ali Velshi has earned his stripes in my opinion. nt

[hlthe2b]

23. Yes. He has and I'd like to see him get a nightly show sometime, but I don't want MSNBC

to revert back to "men only" during prime time. I think Psaki might be a good fit. That said, I never miss Velshi's weekend morning show and he is one I enjoy watching when he fills in for others as well.

[TomCADem]

12. Thom Hartmann Selling Out on Russia Today Disqualifies Him

Both Hartmann and Ed Schulz sold out when they happily accepted Russian dollars to attack Democrats from the "left" on Russia Today.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/06/the-rt-network-russia-s-answer-to-fox-news-and-msnbc.html

Pravda Will Set You Free

Alyona Minkovski is on a rant. The rants are essential parts of The Alyona Show,” the series she’s hosted on Russia Today— RT, if you please—since 2009. They can be about anything, but they are usually about the rest of the media. This particular rant is about the New York Times and the Washington Post, “two major newspapers who won award after award for their hard-hitting journalism,” and who, that day, were crowdsourcing an investigation of Sarah Palin’s email archives from her time as Alaska’s governor. This wins them a spot on Minkovski’s regular feature, “Tool Time.”

* * *

She rolls a clip, a Daily Show-esque rundown of cable news anchors frothing over the Palin trove, making themselves look like fools. As she talks, stage right, one of RT’s other hosts, Adam Kokesh, finishes taping his show and walks through the studio, catching up with reporters. He’s just finished talking to viewers about the health risks of sitting all day at a desk, arsenic levels in FDA-approved chicken, and the goings-on at the annual meeting of the Bilderberg Group. He has stripped down quickly to jeans and a tank top get-up that reveals his biceps and tattoos. Stage left, the liberal radio host Thom Hartmann, primly dressed and radiating calm, is putting together notes for his own show, which will consist largely of an interview with exited White House economist Jared Bernstein.

This is Friday for the strangest prime time news line-up on cable television. It’s a block of TV news that’s professionally produced, widely distributed—20 million American cable subscribers can watch it if they like—and basically immune to market forces. In 2005 RT was hatched, as the Columbia Journalism Review put it, as “a soft-power tool to improve Russia’s image abroad, to counter the anti-Russian bias the Kremlin saw in the Western media.” Reset button or no, we Americans are not the biggest fans of Russian propaganda.

When RT first drew attention here, it was for its coverage of the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict, which portrayed the small republic of 4.6 million people as the aggressor. (One fairly typical segment featured an interview with an American in South Ossetia who blamed America for the violence.) Its coverage of American politics was heavy on interviews with fringe experts and third party candidates; frequent on-air experts included radio host Alex Jones and newsletter reporter Wayne Madsen, who’d discuss too-good-to-check stories about the origins of the swine flu and why WTC Building 7 fell on 9/11.

[gab13by13]

25. I copied this from your link,

Hartmann’s show is the most conventional, and his deal with RT is the most independent. He’d previously appeared on the network as a guest, and they offered him space to film and distribute his series, “The Big Picture.”

“I can tell ya, we’re putting together the same show we’ve been putting together for years,” says Hartmann. “The question of what would Russia want from my show? That was never part of the discussion. I think they liked that it would draw eyeballs, that it was good programming. This is just a guess, because I’m not privy to their inside thinking, but it seems like they’re trying to grow and compete in that space occupied by the CBC and Al-Jazeera, into that space of foreign cable channels that can get audiences in the United States.”

If Hartmann's real fault is supporting Bernie Sanders over Hillary there are a lot of guilty people here at DU who did that also.
There is nothing wrong with Democrats having vigorous debates with one another and come together when the debate is over.

[CrackityJones75]

29. Goodness. He didn't sell put to RT.

Call up his show or write to him for the explanation.

[FoxNewsSucks]

38. Hartmann didn't "sell out", neither did Schultz.

He had editorial control. His show was pretty much the same as his radio show. It was good, but if you listen to the radio show there was no need to watch it. When the RT/Putin shit hit the fan, even though he was independent, he left.

Schultz was booted from MSNBC because of his support for net neutrality, opposition to TPP and opposition to that oil pipeline. He was on the side of working people. When the corporate channel owned by a cable company fired him, he needed a job. I never saw anything that would indicate he "sold out" or did anything other than what he'd been doing on MSNBC.

I agree with others, the reason some here race to trash Hartmann & Schultz is that both are good liberals who supported Bernie Sanders and other pro-worker politicians. And that's shameful.

[TomCADem]

42. Putin TV Stars Pump for Trump

I guess if you can believe that Russia Today, Putin’s propaganda ‘news’ network, was hosting Thom Hartman and Ed Schultz out of the goodness of their heart, then you might as well give OANN and News Max a free pass as well. They were given a platform so long as they attacked Democrats from the "left." Even better, if they pushed they idea that there was no difference between Trump and Hillary Clinton.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/putin-tv-stars-pump-for-trump

Inside Russia Today’s American headquarters in Washington, across from the receptionist’s desk stamped by a lime green “RT” banner, an ad starring Ed Schultz and Larry King plays on a large screen TV.

Schultz and King, whom he dwarfs, stand opposite one another, marveling at the success of the Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, which they both agree is astounding. “Follow the 2016 campaign right here on RT America!” Schultz says. King points at the camera and delivers the network’s slogan, “And question more.”

Founded 11 years ago Thursday in September of 2005, Russia Today is a Moscow-based, English-language news outlet which is funded by the Kremlin and serves to promote Russian state propaganda, like stories about the West collapsing and the CIA being to blame for the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine, which according to RT, Russia did not invade.

In 2010, RT branched out to the United States, launching RT America. In a 2014 BuzzFeed investigation, Rosie Gray reported former RT America employees describing “an atmosphere of censorship and pressure” at the network—like orders to report on Germany as a “failed state” despite any evidence that the country fits the criteria. One RT anchor, Liz Wahl, protested by quitting live on air. She later described herself as “Putin’s pawn.” Casual viewing of the network shows a focus on negative stories about the U.S., from claims that American Olympians received special treatment which allowed them to take drugs to outward mocking of the Democrats’ presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, despite claiming nonpartisanship.

[FreepFryer]

43. Tha for not letting the Hartmann / Putin connection again go unmentioned here at DU (Nt)

[totodeinhere]

13. Excuse me for emerging from under my rock. Is Rachel leaving MSNBC? n/t

[lagomorph777]

16. No - but cutting back to weekly, and will do other stuff at NBC.

[totodeinhere]

35. Thanks. n/t

I will miss her daily show, but she has worked hard for several years and I'm sure she deservers a break.

[RockRaven]

20. When she got a new contract recently it was said that she'd only be doing her show as it is now for

1 more year, then she'd be doing a once-weekly show instead.

[totodeinhere]

36. Thanks. n/t

[Baltimike]

41. Thank you. nt

[hlthe2b]

17. I think that would be excellent. Perhaps someone will start a petition for that to occur

once Maddow leaves her daily show for her weekly specials.

[gab13by13]

18. Does anyone here

listen to real progressive news on Sirius? I go for drives all of the time to listen to the truth.

Look how the MSM and cable news has trashed president Biden for withdrawing from Afghanistan. History will look kindly upon president Biden. Trump left him with a terrible situation, that gets overlooked. Evacuating 125,000 people was a fantastic accomplishment.

I just turn off the propaganda and go for a drive, it is very calming.

[UTUSN]

21. Uh she's very needed where she is.

[lagomorph777]

37. She has said she has never intended to do the job for more than a year or so.

[SunImp]

22. Lol no

[Paladin]

24. "...approach to issues is to teach..."

No thanks as to Thom Hartmann. His viewpoints may be gold-plated, but the last thing we need now is a spokesman who makes the economics profs from your college years look like rock stars by comparison...

[Srkdqltr]

27. I think Jen Psaki would be good, assuming nothing changes in the next year.

Of course everything will change by next week. By this time next year everything will be different . We may hate Jen . We may want to be well rid of Hartmann. And Ali Velshi may well be on to something else.

[twin_ghost]

31. She is going to leave the Press Secretary Offcie to become a stay at home mom in January.

[USALiberal]

33. Lol, check her ratings! Nt

[TreasonousBastard]

34. Jenn White would be a great replacement. "Who's Jenn White?" you ask

Just one of many unopionated news people out there who work to get the story.

[FoxNewsSucks]

39. Psaki is great working for Biden

She probably could transition that ability to TV. But producing and hosting a show is different.

Hartmann would be a good choice.

I'd still like to see Al Franken get it, unless we can get him back in the Senate somehow.

[Baltimike]

40. Is RM leaving her show? nt