The Untold Truth Of Rachel Maddow

If it hadn't been for a dare, Rachel Maddow might not have become one of today's most popular news correspondents. According to The Guardian, a friend dared her to audition for a local radio morning show's sidekick spot because "it might pay more than the minimum wage." As soon as Maddow got on air, something clicked. "We were a tiny little market that only had tiny little news, but I liked being the person who made good sense on the air explaining that news," she told Rolling Stone. "I liked the responsibility of providing information: news updates, snow-day school cancellations, weather reports, traffic snarls."

That little market led to bigger things. In 2004, a radio executive Shelley Lewis received a tape of Maddow's show and decided to put her on the air with The Daily Show co-creator Lizz Winstead and Public Enemy's Chuck D. "She had this incredible brightness of being — this sort of joy," Lewis recalled. Maddow soon landed her own national radio program, The Rachel Maddow Show, which afforded her a three-hour platform to exercise her sociopolitical storytelling instincts. Guest spots on CNN and MSNBC followed, and thus, a TV career was born.

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