The Maddow Blog is one of the more ambitious attempts to date by an MSNBC star trying to rise above the low expectations of the genre.

"We felt like we had an audience that was very wired," said Ms. Maddow. "But we weren't providing a really hospitable environment for them."

Late last year, an opening came up on Ms. Maddow's show for a new segment-producer head. After some discussion, Ms. Maddow and her team decided they'd rather spend the money on someone  who would focus primarily on the Web. Eventually, they hired Laura Conaway, a former Village Voice editor who more recently had been working for the star-crossed NPR-for-young-people show The Bryant Park Project. (The former host of the BPP, Alison Stewart, is married to Bill Wolff, the executive producer of The Rachel Maddow Show). 

Ms. Maddow said that she had long admired Ms. Conaway's work at the BPP, which had a lively Web presence. "We decided to take away resources from producing the TV show in order to hire Laura," said Ms. Maddow.

Over the course of several months, Ms. Maddow and her team worked with people at www.msnbc.msn.com to create a staff blog with a look, feel, and metabolism significantly different from the portal's typical template. The result is a blog that is a distinctive looking mix of political news, liberal analysis, embedded videos (often to non-MSNBC footage), and links to recommended articles.

Currently, Ms. Conaway is the most frequent contributor to The Maddow Blog, which also features the bylines of five or six other staff members on the show, including Ms. Maddow, Mr. Wolff, and web producer Will Femia. "I want people who work on this show to feel like they have a place to write directly under their own name," said Ms. Maddow. "It doesn't all have to be me."

Ms. Maddow said that she thinks of the blog as a way of capturing, sharing, and enhancing the rollicking conversation that goes on among her staff on a daily basis as they prepare for that night's show. Rather than serving as a distraction or as a perfunctory obligation, said Ms. Maddow, the new blog has already begun to provide fodder for the TV show.

"The blog has ended up being an engine for the show," said Ms. Maddow. "It's a new way to collect information. We post every morning a bunch of stuff we're reading to get ready for the show. People get on-line and point us to new stuff. We've had a lot of story ideas for the show generated by people commenting on the blog."

Ms. Maddow said that so far the major concern of the digital folks--that the text-based re-design would result in a drop in the substantial number of people coming to the old Web site to watch segments from the show--hasn't materialized.

"We've done fine," said Ms. Maddow. "We haven't paid a price in terms of overall video clicks. That hasn't suffered. And we're able to do all of this additional content that is, for me, rewarding and rewards the show in terms of ideas."

"We also do just some dumb stuff on there," said Ms. Maddow. "It's a good place to be goofy."

Laura was the heart and soul of Bryant Park who attracted a fiercely loyal group of stringer fans (Me included). She did the same at Planet Money. Now she has helped Rachel Maddow do the same for her show.

This is not a coincidence. It is all about Laura's natural sweetness and her inquiring mind. It has nothing to do with tools and has everything to do with who she is as a person.

It's not about the tools - it's about the human element.