How MSNBC's Steve Kornacki Broke the Latest Christie Scandal

[DonViejo]

Lloyd Grove

Steve Kornacki, the MSNBC newsman who broke a new scandal involving the New Jersey governor, the mayor of Hoboken, and the strings attached to Sandy relief gives a blow-by-blow account of how he got the explosive news.

Steve Kornacki, the latest source of misery for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, has been getting worried messages from relatives over the past few days.

“My family has been sending me all sorts of texts about being careful,” the host of MSNBC’s weekend morning program, Up with Steve Kornacki, said on Monday. On Twitter, the National Journal’s Ron Fournier predicted--jokingly--that Kornacki “will be sitting all month in traffic.” And The Daily Kos’s Greg Dworkin, a Connecticut Democrat, tweeted mock-threateningly: “Nice cable show you got there, Steve. Shame if something happened to it.”

“I haven’t really slept,” Kornacki told me. “I was going to sleep during the day, but now I’m not going to be able to. I’m still working the phones, trying to see what else is put out there--if there are any more angles in particular on this Christie story.”

The embattled governor and his administration were already facing multiple investigations over the politically vindictive George Washington Bridge traffic debacle last September as he was breezing to his landslide reelection. But Kornacki, 34, managed to increase Christie’s troubles significantly on Saturday with a blockbuster interview featuring Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer, a Democrat who, until now, anyway, had been a conspicuous cheerleader of the Republican governor.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/01/21/how-msnbc-s-steve-kornacki-broke-the-latest-christie-scandal.html

[MindMover]

1. Swimmin with the fishes ... an old NJ term - threat ...

[flamingdem]

2. I'd be more concerned about Dawn Zimmer

She brought forward the incriminating goods.

[Stuart G]

3. Yes, am more concerned about Dawn Zimmer. no text..

[leanforward]

4. How did contact with the Mayor develop?

Someday, I sure would like to read or hear how this contact came about. I had read something was afoot on friday, and we did record it. WOW, still. Congratulations, Steve.

[calimary]

5. Welcome to DU, leanforward!

Glad you're here! I would imagine that all the time Kornacki spent in the New Jersey home turf, cultivating sources, memorizing the lay of the land, inhaling the air and the atmosphere and the general feel of that unique, special little world, bore all of this fruit that we're now savoring lo these many years later. He put in the time and the effort. Probably has one rather valuable source book by now. Results like these only come from a lot of time put in, and a LOT of day-to-day work, much of it rather mundane drudgery. It's a very lucky break when you toil in the back of the vineyard like that and do the time and do the scut-work and then hit paydirt like this. A very lucky break.

You can spend a lifetime covering the non-glamorous crap that nobody cares about - the local alderman or city council meetings or the Board of Trade meetings (I've been to some of those in far-flung L.A.-area backwaters and you might as well rename them BORED of Trade meetings) or the other deep-in-the-weeds put-you-to-sleep meetings and you just slog along and put in the time. You meet people and make notes and try to remember names and collect phone numbers. It's work and luck. But mostly work. He's done a LOT of work and put in a LOT of time and has done his homework like gangbusters. He's used all that background effort through his years covering New Jersey and connected some pretty juicy dots. He might be up for a Pulitzer before we know it! Seems to me he deserves one. This was a helluva story to break and the ramifications are just beyond huge, nationwide!

[Cha]

6. thanks Don.. christie and his team are acting guilty.. saying

all the things one would expect of people trying to squirm out of these allegations.

I imagine Kornacki's "working the phones" to have some new information for Saturday's show!