Is Rachel Maddow a News Anchor?

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Here is what a bias news watch organization has to say. I've added my comments. What's yours? Please feel free to comment here.

MSNBC Thinks Rachel Maddow Is A News Anchor?

Over the past several years, MSNBC has run a series of “Lean Forward” ads promoting its various liberal hosts’ television shows as well as the network's numerous liberal causes. While many of them have been downright ridiculous...

NEWSBUSTERS.ORG

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/jeffrey-meyer/2014/12/04/msnbc-thinks-rachel-maddow-news-anchor

I think of her more as a news commentator, or news synthesizer, who occasionally breaks important stories that are ignored by the mainstream news media. She and her producers report conventional news items, but they also search the internet for local news stories that should be of national interest, stories that are too often ignored. They do their fact checking and they develop their own news gathering contributions to these stories. They serve as both a filter and amplifier. The choice of stories they pursue does reveals a liberal bias which they take pains not to hide. But most importantly, they almost always get their facts right. They don't make stuff up to fit a biased political narrative as happens on the Fox News network
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But if you criticize Dr. Maddow for not being a serious news anchor, than what must we say about the utterly silly and insignificant news that serious "news anchors" toss out to their fickle public every day? Doesn't this low information drivel make them illegitimate news anchors as well?

I no longer watch the "legitimate" news shows because these outlets are not providing me with the critical information I need every day to understand what's really happening in our world. Too often they report as news the bias statements of people in power. They fail to connect the dots when local stories form national patterns. This latter problem is what allowed ALEC to fly so long under the radar of the main stream press,

Corporate national news outlets have their own agenda, and it is usually about market share and advertising dollars, not reporting news that might anger key market segments. If viewer share on the Rachael Maddow Show grew significantly, so would the pressure to conform to standards that would not risk loosing those viewers.