Knowing Your Value Read Online Free Page A
Author: Mika Brzezinski
streak that ruffled feathers in Congress made Joe a controversial figure in the halls of NBC. While everybody else played it safe, Joe demanded that we push the
envelope. Needless to say, that earned me few new friends at 30 Rock. Many tried to talk me out of working with him, even offering me the “safety” of a slot on another “more legitimate” broadcast. But I refused to listen to them. I went in a different direction, and I’m extremely proud of that fact. I don’t know any women who would have done what I did in that instance. I went my own way, ripped up my own script. That takes experience and self-knowledge. The ability to be brave, to try something new, to take a risk, to know it’s good when it’s good—that’s worth something. And if you’re going to take a major risk, you sure as hell better know what it’s worth. I can do that. I’m proud because accepting the co-host job meant accepting so much risk. And so much fighting. And so much standing up in the face of rejection. Of so much push back from NBC management and my new bosses who I instinctively wanted to please.
But I was still clueless when it came to translating that powerful sense of self-worth into actual dollars and cents.
Despite the money, I didn’t think of leaving. I was invested in Morning Joe and engrossed in the story we were covering: the 2008 race for the White House. The combination of the first African-American major-party nominee and the lightning speed of the news cycle in the age of social media made the 2008 presidential race unlike any other election I had covered.
Instead of walking away from MSNBC when I first realized I was underpaid, I worked harder to get the candidates booked on our show. It helped that my brother Ian worked for McCain; my father, former national security adviser to
President Carter, had endorsed Obama early on; and my other brother, Mark, worked for President Clinton and was joining the Obama organization to help out. If I didn’t know someone at a campaign, I’d bluff my way in until I got to know someone. Before long, I had lined up interviews with every candidate from Barack Obama to Ron Paul.
Joe and I knew that this election was our opportunity to really put Morning Joe on the map. No one was going to do it for us. We would do everything for ourselves.
Other morning shows had a staff of forty to fifty people and the full support of being “management’s choice”; we had a staff of eight, our BlackBerrys, and the belief that we could do it. We knew we had to be scrappy and relentless. So we ran around the country, basically carrying the show on our backs, and working around the clock to make it must-see political TV.
There was no better example of how alone we were at times than the Iowa caucuses. We wanted to take Morning Joe to Iowa, but MSNBC wasn’t sold on it enough at that point to spend the money. Management liked us, just not that much. We knew we had to be on the ground in Iowa. We fought and fought, and still hit brick walls. They told us there was not enough room in the budget and not enough room in the convention center, where all the other networks had built their sets.
Joe, Chris, and I refused to take no for an answer. We forged ahead. I kept calling all the campaigns and asking them to stop by our studio set—a set that did not yet exist in the minds of MSNBC management. Chris worked on the
travel and producing details as if we were going. On the eve of New Year’s weekend, Joe called Phil Griffin and laid down the law. “Phil, we are going to Iowa,” he said. “If you want us on the air on Monday, you might want to send a few cameras. If you don’t, you will have shots of empty chairs in New York. Your call, but we are going to Iowa .”
MSNBC finally gave Phil the money, and within 48 hours we were scrambling to kiss our families good-bye and make our flights. Joe flew from Florida and made it there first. But Chris and I got stuck in Chicago because of
envelope. Needless to say, that earned me few new friends at 30 Rock. Many tried to talk me out of working with him, even offering me the “safety” of a slot on another “more legitimate” broadcast. But I refused to listen to them. I went in a different direction, and I’m extremely proud of that fact. I don’t know any women who would have done what I did in that instance. I went my own way, ripped up my own script. That takes experience and self-knowledge. The ability to be brave, to try something new, to take a risk, to know it’s good when it’s good—that’s worth something. And if you’re going to take a major risk, you sure as hell better know what it’s worth. I can do that. I’m proud because accepting the co-host job meant accepting so much risk. And so much fighting. And so much standing up in the face of rejection. Of so much push back from NBC management and my new bosses who I instinctively wanted to please.
But I was still clueless when it came to translating that powerful sense of self-worth into actual dollars and cents.
Despite the money, I didn’t think of leaving. I was invested in Morning Joe and engrossed in the story we were covering: the 2008 race for the White House. The combination of the first African-American major-party nominee and the lightning speed of the news cycle in the age of social media made the 2008 presidential race unlike any other election I had covered.
Instead of walking away from MSNBC when I first realized I was underpaid, I worked harder to get the candidates booked on our show. It helped that my brother Ian worked for McCain; my father, former national security adviser to
President Carter, had endorsed Obama early on; and my other brother, Mark, worked for President Clinton and was joining the Obama organization to help out. If I didn’t know someone at a campaign, I’d bluff my way in until I got to know someone. Before long, I had lined up interviews with every candidate from Barack Obama to Ron Paul.
Joe and I knew that this election was our opportunity to really put Morning Joe on the map. No one was going to do it for us. We would do everything for ourselves.
Other morning shows had a staff of forty to fifty people and the full support of being “management’s choice”; we had a staff of eight, our BlackBerrys, and the belief that we could do it. We knew we had to be scrappy and relentless. So we ran around the country, basically carrying the show on our backs, and working around the clock to make it must-see political TV.
There was no better example of how alone we were at times than the Iowa caucuses. We wanted to take Morning Joe to Iowa, but MSNBC wasn’t sold on it enough at that point to spend the money. Management liked us, just not that much. We knew we had to be on the ground in Iowa. We fought and fought, and still hit brick walls. They told us there was not enough room in the budget and not enough room in the convention center, where all the other networks had built their sets.
Joe, Chris, and I refused to take no for an answer. We forged ahead. I kept calling all the campaigns and asking them to stop by our studio set—a set that did not yet exist in the minds of MSNBC management. Chris worked on the
travel and producing details as if we were going. On the eve of New Year’s weekend, Joe called Phil Griffin and laid down the law. “Phil, we are going to Iowa,” he said. “If you want us on the air on Monday, you might want to send a few cameras. If you don’t, you will have shots of empty chairs in New York. Your call, but we are going to Iowa .”
MSNBC finally gave Phil the money, and within 48 hours we were scrambling to kiss our families good-bye and make our flights. Joe flew from Florida and made it there first. But Chris and I got stuck in Chicago because of
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