Wolff says it took the better part of a year for the Verdict staffers to remake themselves in Maddow’s image – readjusting their focus away from the news cycle, shifting their storytelling from revved-up to slow-burn. The perfect Maddow segment, he says, begins with some obscure image from the fringes – “a bird covered in oil in 1979,” say – and then slowly winds its way into the heart of the political debate. “Eventually, you realize that the story of that bird is all about Mitt Romney,” he says, “and it fucking blows your mind.”