Rachel Maddow praises cable news journalists: ‘Never been more vital’

Rachel Maddow says 2020 is a great time to be a journalist since members of the media “have never been more vital” to American culture.

The MSNBC host stopped by “Late Show With Stephen Colbert” Wednesday when the topic turned to her uncanny ability to come away unscathed despite consuming “a lot of the poison” served to her by President Trump.

Mr. Colbert marveled at his guest’s ability to take “parts of the story … and show you how the engine works” before asking how Mr. Trump’s administration changed her outlook on the profession.

“You have consumed a lot of the poison of what the administration, this present administration is trying to sell to the American people and the world,” the CBS late-night host said. “How do you think that has affected the way you approach reporting the news?”

“It might have changed what I am able to digest and how,” Ms. Maddow replied. “I feel like this was — I mean this is a great time to be in the news business because we’ve never been more vital. Just to learn these basic rules again that if we didn’t know them before, you know, don’t listen to what they’re saying. Just watch what they’re doing. Don’t — don’t take at face value something you get from a government official because a government official is saying it.”

Ms. Maddow then added, however, that presumptive President-elect Joseph R. Biden is primed to have a mundane and uncontroversial White House tenure.

“It’s been weird [covering Mr. Trump] and I think [it] has unwired a lot of us in the business in a way,” she continued. “I’m really looking forward to Biden being boring. I mean, he sort of promised to be boring.”