Knowing Your Value Read Online Free Page B

storms and air-traffic delays. We had ten hours to make it to Des Moines, 300 miles away. Chris and I grabbed a rental car—without my luggage, because it was lost. We drove all night through a blizzard to make our five-AM Des Moines broadcast. We arrived several hours before airtime. I was so worn down, I even ate McDonald’s chicken nuggets and fries for breakfast; as someone who aspires to be a paragon of healthy living, that was a desperate act.
    With no room for a Morning Joe set at the convention center, we set up a makeshift studio at Java Joe’s, a popular Des Moines coffee shop filled with locals. Soon, every candidate showed up at Java Joe’s and stayed a while to drink coffee and shoot the breeze. The result was spontaneous and spirited conversations that engrossed viewers and participants alike.
    I was running on no sleep but made it through five hours of programming that morning. After seeing the first hour of the show—the show no one wanted to send to Iowa—Phil got so excited that he asked us to stay on the air two extra hours.
MSNBC’s front office would later tell us those five hours were among the network’s best hours of campaign coverage.
    It was at Java Joe’s that we received the blessing from the king of political news, NBC News ’ Washington bureau chief and moderator of Meet the Press , Tim Russert. He was over at the convention center doing the Today Show , but it was clear to Tim that the excitement in Iowa was at Java Joe’s. When the door swung open and Tim walked in saying, “Hey, you guys mind if I get on the show?” we were thrilled. He stayed on for an hour and then hung out in the background for the rest of the morning talking to candidates and campaign managers. The whole morning flew by and felt like magic.
    Phil Griffin had already given us some unforgettable advice: “You all should look at it this way: You have an audience of one. You need to ask yourself, ‘Would Tim like this?’” So when Tim, the head of the network’s political coverage, joined us at the center of the action, it was as if we’d received a true royal blessing. We believe Tim’s support and presence helped set the path for our future. He passed away in June of 2008, but we will never forget what he did for us. We will never forget our audience of one.
    Phil called Joe during the broadcast the second day. “Hey, can you do this in New Hampshire too?” he asked. “And what about Michigan and South Carolina?”
    All our hard work was paying off. Our ratings soared. MSNBC was keeping us on the air an extra three hours every day, six in total. Morning Joe had quickly become the place for presidential candidates to be seen and heard. It was the show of choice for political junkies and viewers tired of the
standard morning broadcast fare. Our audience was growing, and the show itself was making news.
    While we were on the road, I tried to push my salary concerns aside. I didn’t want to deal with the situation; I certainly didn’t have time. Yet the money issue kept surfacing. At times when I should have been celebrating, I grew morose and discouraged.

PLAYING THE VICTIM
    Three months into Morning Joe’s run, I started getting e-mails making fun of my clothes. One day I wore a vivid pattern, and a viewer wrote, “What painter threw up on Mika?”
    Part of my job is to look fresh sitting among a bunch of men at six AM. In a visual medium, appearances matter. Clothes are part of the production element of a talk show. If not handled correctly, they become a distraction that interferes with the substance of the broadcast.
    That said, nobody cares what the men wear or how they style their hair. Joe rolls out of bed at 5:45 AM and jumps in the car to make the top of the show with only seconds to spare, his face still puffy and creased from sleep. He’ll take his seat wearing a fleece sweater and run his hand through his hair to brush it. If he were a woman, he would be called a disgrace.
    Being a