Thursday, December 18, 2008

All the news that's fit to Vogue

Vogue - Rachel Maddow

You know what's sexier than a girl reporter? Well, a woman reporter, naturally. And what's sexier than a woman reporter? Oh, you know where this is going. Hello, Rachel Maddow. America's (nay the world's) favorite lesbian reporter got the Vogue treatment along with her fellow newswomen Katie Couric and Campbell Brown. For a magazine that prides itself on the glorification of human coat racks wearing outlandish-looking and outrageous-costing frocks, these three ladies look damn respectable. In fact, they look fantastic.

Vogue - Katie CouricVogue - Campbell Brown

The mini-profiles on each newswoman are no slouch either. (The full, longer profiles are available in the January issue of Vogue.) For quick reads, the online versions are both informative and nicely-written, with a delightful insight here and there. Like, say, which “The Breakfast Club” character do you think Rachel Maddow was in high school?

“I grew up on a lot of John Hughes movies, so by calling myself a jock I don't want you to think that I was a dick. I was a cross between the jock and the antisocial girl who bit people. The Ally Sheedy character. And who was Judd what's-his-face? The outsider. I wanted to be the outsider so bad. But I was the jock and that bad-hair girl.”

Also, she reads her Twitter feed. Is there no end to her awesome?

The recent election season has truly been an extraordinary one not just for Rachel but for Katie and Campbell alike. These journalists all distinguished themselves not only as smart and capable but uniquely able to reveal the truth and dissect the spin. Amid the endless chatter of the campaign, they were reminders that journalism done well is still an essential part of a healthy democracy. In today's world an infinite stream of information and misinformation is available at our fingertips. So now, more than ever, we need people like Rachel, Katie and Campbell to help us understand what really matters. In fact, I'd argue that without these women and another woman with distinctive eyewear and a last name that rhymes with “gay,” this election could have ended very differently. You go, girl reporters. People may still call it a man's world, but it takes a real woman to report on it.

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