MSNBC is in shambles as Rachel Maddow hosts her prime-time show “The Rachel Maddow Show” only once per week due to her new contract with the network. Wagner was recently featured on HBO’s “The Circus,” where a few folks covered the Democratic primaries while “analyzing” Donald Trump’s presidency.
“Alex Wagner Tonight” has averaged 1.6 million viewers through two weeks of her show. In comparison, “The Rachel Maddow Show” averaged 2.6 million viewers over that two-week span, as Wagner lost more than 30 percent of Maddow’s audience.
This was Wagner’s message before her prime-time slot on MSNBC:
“I want to garner the largest audience we can, and I want to do that by putting a really quality show on the air.”
“I have no intention of ignoring what’s happening to Asian American people in this country … My mother, who is 78 years old, doesn’t feel comfortable walking down the street in the swing district where she lives. And that’s a problem for not just me, but for our society, that people feel like they could just be pushed onto a train track or off of a subway platform because of the way that they look.”
When Karen K. Ho of “The Cut” asked Wagner about what it felt like to join the cohort, she said:
“It’s insane. I feel so honored to be one of them. And also, that’s got to change.” Ho responded saying “it’s happening. You’re in the group now.” Wagner said, “I know. Let’s hope I can stay here.”
To be fair, Wagner earned that prime-time slot and was a good reporter on HBO’s “The Circus,” but I think her downfall occurred when she opened her MSNBC show and attacked Christianity. It appears that religious bigotry is not popular, even for MSNBC viewers. Wagner’s show seems to mainly consist of bashing DeSantis and other Republicans she disagrees with. This would be fine, but the problem with her approach is that she claims she is a “journalist.” A journalist must report as unbiasedly as possible, give credit where credit is due, and report on the facts. Currently, Wagner is biasedly reporting the news on a nightly basis. Like most Fox News hosts don’t claim they are journalists, Wagner, and most mainstream media hosts, should not either. A television personality would be a better description for her.
Some claim she does not motivate Democrats to vote. The job of an actual journalist is to report on the facts, and she claims to be a journalist, so her job is not supposed to be motivating people to vote.
She can turn things around, but only if she reports on the facts, similar to how NewsNation reports on the news and moves away from speaking about DeSantis constantly and trashing Christianity. The more she indulges in religion and bashing GOP members, the more her ratings will dip; not among regular MSNBC viewers necessarily, but among those who tuned in to “The Circus” because she was completely different there than she is on MSNBC.