Yesterday Rachel informed her audience that she’s going to be on hiatus starting at the end of this week until April. She’s going to be busy working on a new podcast and a movie is being made of her first book and podcast, Bag Man, about former Vice President Spiro Agnew. She also suggested that she might be going on another hiatus after this one.
I will miss watching her so much and I know I’m not the only one. I’ve been trying to think of anyone who comes remotely close to doing what she does and I can’t think of anyone. She is a great storyteller to start. It’s hard to believe that she keeps us enthralled for at least 20 minutes at the first part of the show just telling us about something in history that somehow relates to something that is happening now. Each night she wears the same plain hairdo, the same black outfit, not letting anything about her appearance distract from the story. You’d think that would be boring, but it never is.
I can’t imagine the work that goes into building each show. She comes up with more stories than any other tv host. She has an incredible staff of researchers, and they’ll still be around for the next two months, but it won’t be the same without Rachel.
I’m a news junky and I watch the other shows on MSNBC. Most of the hosts use the same commentators over and over. They often have two or even three commentators on a split screen. I find that distracting and annoying. Rachel seldom does that. When she has a guest they get the full screen (or maybe half with her having the other half) because what they have to say is important and worth our full attention.
With Rachel gone, I’m going to have to rely a lot more on Daily Kos diaries to give me insights so I hope that the diarists here will step up their game.