When Stephanie Ruhle takes over The th Hour on MSNBC A year ago, she called herself a “huge fan” of the show.
It was Brian Williams who started the program at 20 and quickly built a method to Identify the late slots it occupies, and where viewers are most likely to tune in.
“I love it because in a really chaotic political age, it’s a show at the end of the day that says, ‘This is all the crazy stuff that’s going on today, That’s the most important thing,'” Ruhle said. “I definitely wouldn’t call this show rooted in ideology, but it’s one that tries to be smart and thoughtful.”
Ruhle is now at The afternoon is firmly settled, with her background in finance (she was a Bloomberg TV anchor and a banker at Credit Suisse before joining NBC, where she was also a senior business reporter) while also serving MSNBC’s political sweet spot.
“I want to take the torch that has been handed to me over the past year, keep the boat steady and make it my own. That’s my goal, I think We’ve done that,” Ruhle added. “I think one of our main concerns, besides ‘how do we get better and smarter,’ is really following the money.”
In fact, it seems like Money and power go hand in hand, and that’s been evident in some of the biggest stories of the past few months, whether it’s the implosion of FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried, or the train derailment in southern Norfolk, Ohio.
“A huge goal for me is to make people understand and care more about business and the economy. We all care about money. We all know that when we find a job When new to work we want to maximize the amount of money we can make…. I always get frustrated when I only work in business journalism, it feels like we are always covering the market and we are covering the market for a specific audience. And I don’t think it should just be a specific audience. I think everyone should be financially literate,” Ruhle said. “Whether you’re talking about train derailments or FTX, these stories aren’t just about this company or this company. They’re about money and influence. The more money the individual has, the more money the company has, and they have Politics has more influence.”
“Going back to the train derailment. It goes to lobby, it goes to deregulation, right? That’s because these companies have huge amounts of money,” Ruhle added road. “Think about FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried — what we learned is that he gave a lot of money to politicians of both parties. By the way, from a journalistic standpoint, we’re hyperpartisan, we’re not hyperpartisan . We want to follow the money.”
Of course, MSNBC is not CNBC, and Ruhle says she tries to balance her personal interests with what her team thinks will lead to compelling interviews or The content of the fragment.
“Right now, I do have a tendency to be too dumb because of my background in business and economics, and I’d say I’m definitely our The biggest economic nerd show in the field. But we kept arguing and the team pulled me back from it,” Ruhle said, adding that when her show crew convened their daily meeting (the next day, because everyone was trying to Rushing home at midnight after the show) ), they break down the previous day’s routine to determine what worked and what didn’t.
The results speak for themselves:
at hour in Consistently beats CNN by the hour (CNN’s total viewership more than doubled in February), although Fox News Gutfeld is still
cable news Number One Show in pm EST.
But Ruhle also said she didn’t want to come across as booking guests or operating a niche market looking to get attention.
“I do like covering cultural issues and really trying to cover them with experts, not in a quote-unquote, ‘viral’ way,” she said. explain. “It’s hard because theoretically everyone wants to be sexy. I just think being hot means you get burned pretty quickly. I can tell you from experience and the mistakes I’ve made when I’m too glib, too I made a mistake when being rude or skiing and I always regret it. And I think that withdrawing % and not going over the top is in your favor in the long run. ”
That could mean a lengthy interview with NYU professor Jay Rosen on the power of Fox News in the Republican Party, or an interview with the Speaker of the House in January. Interview with Rep. Lauren Boebert during the campaign.
But it also means reporting in detail on the FTX debacle and its impact, as well as on inflation or incidental Snippets on topics like interest loopholes (“It’s definitely a giveaway, private connection to the equity industry,” says Ruhle).
“I think we have to keep reporting these stories and educating the American people,” she added. “We usually say, ‘The rich get richer, the poor get poorer’, ‘They’re not paying their fair share’, but that’s just a headline. I definitely wouldn’t subscribe. I don’t agree that capitalism works or doesn’t work I subscribe to ‘Let’s find individual stories that aren’t working, or find where the system is being exploited,’ and spinoff is a good example.”
” If we were going to explain this to our audience, you might lose the audience on the first night, you might lose them on the second night, but I don’t want to make the hottest show that spreads every night of the week,” Ruhle added road. “I hope to do something that allows us to plant another seed every night, another seed, and if we’re planting something thoughtful and intelligent, that’s what we’re aiming for.” 2016
