There is an axiom in the news business that says if you lie to your core audience, that core audience will abandon you once the truth is revealed — and the truth is always revealed. It’s an axiom that MSNBC should have heeded. For most of a year, the network’s ratings have been steadily improving with one of its hosts, Rachel Maddow, garnering double-digit increases to become MSNBC‘s prime-time behemoth, surpassing, on some nights, Fox News rival Sean Hannity. And for that same period, Maddow and the rest of the network’s ‘talent’ line-up pushed the Russian collusion hoax to viewers.