I still remember the first conversation I had with “The Rachel Maddow Show” when it reached out to me in December 2011. What “TRMS” had in mind was an experiment of sorts: There were cable news shows that covered politics, and there were online outlets that did the same thing with written commentary and analysis, but wouldn’t it be interesting if there were an enterprise that did both?
The fact that the pitch was coming from my favorite show made it all the more exciting.
I jumped at the opportunity, took the reins at MaddowBlog, and started publishing — on Jan. 30, 2012.
Ten years, three presidents, two recessions, two impeachments and a global pandemic later, it’s still an experiment I am proud to be a part of.
Recommended
By most measures, politics has changed over the course of the decade, and not for the better. Things were plenty messy when I hit “publish” for the first time at my new MSNBC gig, but there were very few doubts at the time that both political parties were committed to democracy and accepting election results — and if someone had told me in 2012 that that a buffoonish television personality could be elected to the nation’s highest office, I wouldn’t have believed it.
But what hasn’t changed at all at MaddowBlog is our interest in increasing the amount of useful information in the world.
As my second decade at the site gets underway, I remain every bit as excited as I was in 2012 about my work with Rachel and the team, and the fact that there’s an audience for what we do.
All of which is to say, thank you. Whether you’ve been reading for 10 years or 10 minutes, I appreciate your time and support.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
Latest Post