Park Scholar Alum Kate Sheppard recently made an appearance on the Rachel Maddow Show

Maura Gladys, 11/5/2009  ·  0 comments

Kate Sheppard on the Rachel Maddow Show

Park Scholar alum Kate Sheppard (‘06) recently made an appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. Sheppard was featured on the Oct. 19 broadcast of Maddow’s show where she discussed a stunt pulled by a political culture jamming group named The Yes Men on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The anti-corporate pranksters held a fake press conference posing as members of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce where they announced that the Chamber of Commerce was radically changing its policy on climate change. Several media outlets were duped by the ruse including Reuters which published a piece that was later picked up by the Washington Post and the New York Times and published on their Web sites. Sheppard however, was tipped by a source that the press conference was fake, and was one of the first reporters to write about it.

“I had gotten an e-mail just like everyone else, and I thought it was real at first,” said Sheppard. “Luckily someone I know in the activist community tipped me off. So I went over to see what it was and I wrote a story about it.”

Soon after, Sheppard’s agent was contacted about appearing on Maddow’s show later that night.

“It was a really last minute thing,” Sheppard said. “They called me at 6 p.m. and the show is filmed live at 9. She usually films her show in New York, but she was in D.C. that week so I got to go on set and meet her. She’s really down to earth, she’s a good person. It was a great experience.”