MSNBC has canceled Joy Reid's evening news show and held a "tense" meeting with her staff after the news was leaked to the press.
The final episode ofThe ReidOut will air this week, The New York Times reports. Her slot will be replaced by a show led by a trio of hosts: Democratic strategist Symone Sanders Townsend, former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele and journalist Alicia Menendez. They currently host The Weekend, which airs on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
Rebecca Kutler, the network's newly-appointed leader, made the call amid larger plans to overhaul MSNBC's programming, according to the Times.
Now, media journalist Oliver Darcy reports Reid's staff found out they were losing their jobs in a tense and emotional 30-minute impromptu meeting Sunday morning. Staffers were reportedly frustrated they learned about the show shutting down from media reports, rather than directly from leadership.
Reid has hosted a 7 p.m. show on the network since 2020. She had been with the company since 2014.
The network has also removed Alex Wagner from her weekday evening spot, and Darcy reports Kutler held a "similar" meeting with the show's staff. However, Wagner is expected to stay with MSNBC as a contributor.
Now, many are mourning Reid's departure.
"I owe the television part of my career to Joy Reid, as do so many other Black voices y'all never would have heard of if not for her," journalist Elie Mystal wrote on X. "And *that's* why she's gone. They can treat black folks as interchangeable, but everybody Black knows that Joy was indispensable."
Alex Wagner, who has been given 30 chances to do something on MSNBC and has failed every time, was also demoted.
Keith Olbermann knows why: Rrrracism!
One-time MSNBC primetime host Keith Olbermann said that his former network's reported firing of Joy Reid and cancelation of Alex Wagner's nightly show was "racist," noting that only four women of color have solo-hosted programs for the liberal cable news network -- and all of them have been kicked to the curb.
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In addition to the network dropping Reid, new MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler is also expected to remove Wagner from the primetime lineup. Wagner was pulled from her Tuesday-Friday 9 p.m. slot after the inauguration when MSNBC convinced its top star Rachel Maddow to host five nights a week during President Donald Trump's first 100 days in office, a move which has helped the channel reverse its post-election ratings slump.
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Olbermann, once MSNBC's biggest star before his acrimonious departure in 2011, laid into his former employers for booting Reid and Wagner during an early Monday morning podcast, claiming the left-leaning channel was sidelining women of color for "salespeople" who will do as they're told.
"MSNBC fired Joy Reid, and yes it is racist and maybe worse. Yes, it is designed to keep out people who might think differently," Olbermann declared. "And it is designed to reward professional political salespeople like ex-party chairmen and former press secretaries who will do what they are told by their bosses."
He added: "But most of all, since they also fired Alex Wagner as they fired Joy Reid, at least The New York Times says this, it means that four women of color have solo hosted prominent shows on MSNBC, and all four of them have now been fired."
Besides Wagner and Reid, who coincidentally also had weekday programs canceled by the network in 2015, MSNBC has also axed weekend programs hosted by progressive Black female hosts Melissa Harris-Perry and Tiffany Cross. According to Olbermann, this is no coincidence.
Accusing the triumvirate of hosts replacing Reid of engaging in "salesmanship as opposed to commentary or insight," he also said the same of Psaki. "And if anybody on television -- besides her counterparts who are all on Fox -- if anybody is a salesperson as opposed to an analyst or a commentator, it's Jen Psaki," the outspoken ex-MSNBC anchor stated.
"These people are salespersons," he added. "Salespersons doctrinaire, and often it's doctrinaire bullshit. If you have been a salesperson, a press secretary for a politician these days, you have -- I'm sorry -- lied."
Saying he's had "lots of problems" with Wagner over the years, claiming she was "not interested in doing the harder parts of the job" of hosting, Olbermann still came to her defense regarding her credibility as a serious political analyst and commentator. "But Alex Wagner was not a salesperson for some politician or political point of view," he noted.
Olbermann then pointed out that Reid -- along with Harris-Perry and Cross -- repeatedly stoked controversy and enraged the conservative media machine, adding that MSNBC bowed to the outrage from the right over their commentary rather than stick by the hosts.
"Hmm, Melissa Harris, Perry, Tiffany Cross, Joy Reid, Alex Wagner. Four women -- what did they have in common?" Olbermann rhetorically asked. "Well, let's see, they all had their own shows -- solo hosts on MSNBC, and they were all women of color, and they've all been fired."
While acknowledging that the hosts replacing Reid are also people of color and that Kutler is apparently looking to bring on other Black hosts, Olbermann suggested that those picks are all "safe" and won't rock the boat.
"Don't we want this? Won't this make it easier to sell this company when we want to?" Olbermann snarked. "Won't it make it easier the next time Trump threatens NBC and MSNBC for us to say, but we fired Joy Reid."
As a conservative, I have no idea what it's like to have to moderate my tone in order to be acceptable to corporations. Can you imagine having to live under such an evil system? Can you?!?!
Trump has different thoughts:
Here are some of Transgender Simon Phoenix's all-time Lunatic Racist Rants.