Another Reason To Love Rachel Maddow

A few nights ago, Rachel Maddow was discussing the Wall St. bailout on her MSNBC show with guest, Dr. Laura Tyson.

Tyson, a former economic advisor to Pres. Clinton and now a professor at UC-Berkeley, was defending the banks who received bailout money for their total lack of disclosure or transparency on how they were using the cash. What Tyson didn’t disclose – but blogger David Sirota discovered – is that she is a director of Morgan Stanley which received $10-billion from the Treasury Dept. Nor, did Tyson happen to mention that she earns $350,000 annually from the bank in director’s fees and owns 79,000 shares in the company.

When Sirota informed Maddow of this oversight, she did something that few, if any, hosts on cable news would do. She not only admitted the oversight, Maddow chastised herself for not doing a better job of researching Tyson’s background and current business interests. And she didn’t just mumble a hasty “sorry;” she detailed her mistake, aired a response from Tyson and then apologised to her audience.



The Tyson incident is just one more example of why I love Rachel Maddow and, more to the point, why she is one of the best journalists around – cable, broadcast and print.