“I watch MSNBC for Joy Reid, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow
and Lawrence O’Donnell because I trust them as journalists,” Ms. Steinem wrote, adding, “A journalist’s job is not to be balanced; it’s to be accurate.”
At Rockefeller Plaza, Ms. Maddow was asked if it felt odd to be enjoying a major
career moment thanks to the election of a president whose policies she loathes.
These days, he is a newfound devotee of Rachel Maddow of MSNBC — “She’s always talking about the Russians!” his wife, Yvonne, chimed in —
and believes Mr. Stewart’s successor, Trevor Noah, has finally “hit his stride.”
“With Trump in office, I really feel the need to stay more informed,” Mr. Brumleve added.
“We all gather around that hearth to know what’s going on out there,
and be comforted by the people who come on our screens to say, things will be all right.”
Last week, outside a taping Samantha Bee’s TBS comedy show, “Full Frontal,” Stacie Bloom, 44, said she was finding television “cathartic.”
“Maddow, I love her,” said Ms. Bloom, a scientist who lives in New York.
“There’s definitely a sense of we’re-in-this-together-ness,” Mr. Noah said in an interview, noting
that Mr. Trump’s election had infused his show with a new sense of purpose.
I experience it in a different way than the audience experiences it, but I need it, too.”
For Mr. Noah, who struggled early on to replicate the success of his “Daily Show” predecessor, Mr. Stewart, the election became a clarifying moment.