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10 Questions with ... Rachel Maddow
December 13, 2005
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NAME:Rachel MaddowPOSITION:HostNETWORK:Air America RadioBORN:Castro Valley, CaliforniaRAISED:Castro Valley, California
BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:
The official bio: Rachel Maddow hosts Air America Radio's national morning drive news program, The Rachel Maddow Show. Launched in April 2005, The Rachel Maddow Show airs weekdays 5AM-6AM (Eastern) on the Air America Radio network in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and many other markets, as well as nationally online and on XM Satellite Radio. On Monday, Jan. 2, Rachel will take her show to the 7-9 AM time slot on Air America Radio. Rachel has a Doctorate in Politics from Oxford University and a degree in Public Policy from Stanford. She was the first openly gay American to win a Rhodes Scholarship. Her background is in commercial radio (WRSI, WRNX) and political activism. Rachel is a founding member of several HIV/AIDS activist groups, and is an expert on US prison conditions. Prior to launching The Rachel Maddow Show, Rachel co-hosted Air America's Unfiltered with Chuck D and Lizz Winstead. Rachel is also the co-host of The Situation with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC.
1. Your background is in both activism and radio, an interesting combination to say the least, and your educational background's also unusual for a radio host. How did you get your start in radio- why did you choose radio?
The scholarship money that paid for me to go to grad school in England ran out long before I finished my dissertation. So I moved back to the US intending to crash for a couple of months with friends in Western Massachusetts while I finished up. Those friends were fans of the WRNX morning show, and dared me to go to the station's open audition for the sidekick/newsgirl job. I was hired on the spot and started the next day. I'd never considered radio for one hot second before going to that audition, but it grabbed me. Plus my previous "odd jobs" sucked -- I was a slow barista, a video store clerk without a VCR, a delivery girl with a broken-down car, a lazy yard girl, and finally, an excellent bucketwasher. I left the bucketwashing job for radio, but it's always there for me if I lose my voice.
2. What are you passionate about?
I'm passionately patriotic, which surprises some people -- the Constitution has a more-than-secular hold on me. I'm passionate about my family -- my partner Susan Mikula. I'm passionate about ethics (though I make no claim to being a particularly ethical person), about music, about great booze, about Amtrak, about weather.gov, about privacy, about cannoli.
3. Air America Radio's been through quite a rollercoaster since it launched, as have you, moving from one of three hosts on one show to your own early morning show and now to the 7-9 am slot. What would you say have been the low and high points of your Air America tenure so far?
Low point -- telling my mother my show, "Unfiltered," was being replaced by Jerry Springer, on my birthday, while she was on the other line with her sister the nun in Canada. High point -- it sounds cheesy, but there's no single moment more important to me than the moment of realization I have every day that this is my freaking job.
4. Some talk hosts think of themselves as political power brokers, some as pure entertainers, some as educators. How do you see your role- are you primarily a political communicator, an educator, an entertainer?
I think of myself primarily as an entertainer -- in commercial radio, really, we're all just there to deliver listeners to the mattress ads. But I'm apparently at my most entertaining when I'm explaining stuff and talking politics.
5. You're liberal and you're openly gay, which are both rarities in syndicated talk radio. What else makes you special- what else would you say differentiates you not only from the rest of talk radio in general but from the rest of the Air America lineup? What do listeners get from Rachel Maddow that they can't get from anyone else?
Because I spent a long time as a full-time activist before I ever started doing radio, I don't confuse the two. I don't see talk radio as activism and I don't try to wring an activist's sense of mission out of my job. That, I think, is probably why I take a newsier, more information-driven approach to my show than most other folks in the business. I'm not organizing a campaign, I'm not whipping people into a frenzy for or against a candidate -- The Rachel Maddow Show doesn't have much of a Hallelujah Chorus. My goal instead is to deliver a lot of news -- useful information, including opinion, in an entertaining digestible way that people can take away from the show and put to whatever use they want. The show moves fast and covers a lot of ground.
6. What about you would surprise the hell out of people?
My secret alter ego is Brian Maloney.
7. Of what are you most proud?
Two things: (1) my family, and (2) convincing the Mississippi Department of Corrections to change its policy on segregating prisoners with HIV.
8. What do you do for fun?
I stole Tucker Carlson's Treo a year ago and ever since have been systematically paintballing every address in his phonebook. Oh, and there's the whole War on Christmas thing. Fun, but exhausting. Christmas apparently won again this year -- next year I'm upping it to a jihad.
9. Fill in the blank: I can't make it through the day without _____________.
...oxygen, water, exactly the right amount of caffeine, the New York Times, at least two hours sleep, and paintballing a house in Tucker's phonebook.
10. What's the best advice you ever got? The worst?
The best and worst pieces of advice in my life both came from deodorant ad campaigns. Best -- never let them see you sweat. Worst -- strong enough for a man but made for a woman. I mean, that's maybe a great lesbian recruitment slogan, or something, but it's crappy advice.
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