This is the second installment of the Philadelphia Weekly takeover.  We are very excited about this, so please check it out and share with people you know.

In this episode, we talk with Rachel Sklar, editor of the Huffington Post’s Eat the Press page. We talk about her career, going from high-powered attorney to freelance writer to media editor and TV talking head, and what advice she’d give up and coming writers and reporters.

We talk about where she sees the landscape of the industry going and also chat about her role as a member of the media, covering the media. We do spin it local, as I bring up the fact that while Chris Matthews and Tim Russert make $5 million per year, they Mayor of one of the biggest cities in the country makes $186,000 and the President makes $400,000 (sure, with lots of free stuff as well). I use that example to ask who is more influential in today’s political climate, the politicians or the people covering them, which Rachel promptly and (seemingly) effortlessly refutes the notion that in this case, the money matters.

We talk a lot about the Keith Olbermann rant on George Bush from last week, and I ask Rachel if she thought it was necessary or just piling on at this point. We also address her story from a few weeks ago in which Olbermann claimed someone should take Hillary Clinton into a back room and only he, indicating Obama, would come out. Rachel took that as an inadvertent advocation of beating up a woman, and spun that to bring up many gender issues in this political campaign. Following on that, I ask if this campaign season has shown this country to be a more sexist or racist nation.

Oh, and we even manage to sneak in a little American Idol, too.

Link to this:

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