MSNBC host Rachel Maddow’s recent on-air rebuke of her own network’s major shake-up — which included the decision to cancel her colleague Joy Reid’s show ― touched on a very real problem that has frustrated and concerned many: News organizations across the country continue to lack racial diversity and representation.

The network’s new president, Rebecca Kutler, announced in a memo to staff on Monday that Reid was set to leave MSNBC following reports over the weekend that her show, “The ReidOut,” was getting canceled. In addition to Reid’s show, the memo announced that the network would be canceling host Alex Wagner’s current prime-time nighttime spot, and that Wagner will remain with the network as a senior political analyst.

During Maddow’s remarks on-air on Monday night, she called out the fact that Reid, who is Black, and Wagner, who is the daughter of a Burmese mother and white American father, were the only two women of color with prime-time slots at MSNBC.

She called it “unnerving” that “both of our nonwhite hosts in prime-time are losing their shows, as is Katie Phang on the weekend.”

“And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them,” she said. “That feels indefensible, and I do not defend it.”

Reid’s 7 p.m. show is set to be replaced by a program co-hosted by Symone Sanders Townsend and Michael Steel, who are both Black, and Alicia Menendez, who is of Cuban descent. Maddow, who normally hosts a Monday night show, had been temporarily covering Wagner’s 9 p.m. slot Tuesdays through Thursdays to cover President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office. Jen Psaki, who is white, will replace Wagner’s nighttime spot when Maddow returns to her Monday-only schedule.

People on social media expressed their dismay after reports emerged that MSNBC would cancel Reid’s show, as well as weekend shows hosted by other anchors of color: Phang, Ayman Mohyeldin and Jonathan Capehart.

Many were outraged that the network is removing prime-time anchors who represent marginalized groups amid the Trump administration’s damaging foreign policy rhetoric and executive actions that have taken aim at transgender and nonbinary people and DEI initiatives, among other issues.

Former New York congressman Jamaal Bowman wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Reid — who became the only Black woman to host a nightly prime-time cable news program when she was hired in 2020 — “educated a nation every single night” by addressing issues concerning racial discrimination, the LGBTQ community, the Israeli bombardment of Gaza and all marginalized groups.

“We stand up for Black people, and GAZA and the LGBTQ, and oppressed people and vulnerable people everywhere! And we will never stop!” he wrote.

Elie Mystal, a correspondent at The Nation, said on X that Reid is “indispensable.”

“The cancellation of Joy Reid’s show on @MSNBC is a major loss for journalism, truth-telling, and diverse media representation,” Gerald A. Griggs, the president of the Georgia chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, wrote on X.

“At a time of rampant misinformation and threats to democracy, we need more voices like hers, not fewer,” he added.

The wide backlash to MSNBC’s shake-up has spurred many important conversations about today’s media landscape. Among them is the point that news organizations have long struggled with diversity and representation. And with Trump’s sweeping executive actions, racial, religious, disability and LGBTQ representation in newsrooms is important now more than ever.

A 2022 Pew Research Center survey analyzing racial demographics revealed that just 6% of reporting journalists are Black, which is well below the 11% Black share of U.S. workers, according to the study. Asian journalists represented 3% of all reporting journalists, with Hispanic journalists representing 8%. White journalists represented an overwhelming majority of newsrooms at 76%.

The nonpartisan think tank published research the following year analyzing how Black communities perceive news coverage about them, and the importance Black Americans place on getting news from Black journalists.

The study found that Black Americans were more likely than white and Hispanic Americans to feel the news media misunderstands them based on issues relating to their race or another demographic trait. Additionally, the survey found that 45% of Black Americans feel that Black journalists cover issues of race and equality better than other journalists.

Representation within news organizations is crucial.

Heather Hendershot, historian and professor of Communications Studies and Journalism at Northwestern University, said that employing journalists that represent marginalized groups is “exactly” what news organizations need to be doing at this time.

She told HuffPost that news media organizations, particularly “politically slanted” ones like the left-leaning MSNBC, have the best opportunity to “push back” against the Trump administration.

“Journalists play a critical role in democracies, as irreplaceable mediators between the public and the governments,” Yotam Ophir, associate professor at the Department of Communication College of Arts and Sciences at the University at Buffalo told HuffPost. “But if the media [fails] to include the voices of non-white people (or in other cases, of non-male people), it cannot adequately fulfill this important role.”

As it relates to the recent MSNBC cancellations, Ophir said that “it is understandable why Maddow and others connect the dismissal of Black voices from their channel to the political climate of the moment,” but that the public doesn’t know all the details surrounding the dismissals, and he’s not “aware of any evidence that the layoffs at MSNBC had to do with the race of the fired people.”

He also offered that Maddow may have had “insider knowledge or information” about the network’s changes that the public is not privy to.

Ophir said that the shake-up also speaks to broader issues facing the state of journalism, and that Maddow’s on-air reaction in her Monday night segment should also “be understood in the context of the current political and economic moment for journalism.”

“The MSNBC layoffs do not occur in a vacuum. They are part of a massive phenomenon consisting of shrinking newsrooms around the country,” he said, later adding that the “advertising-based model of journalism had been in a state of crisis for about 15 years now.”

Journalists in positions of power should push for more diverse voices in news media.

“Campaigns of the past demonstrated the importance of allyship,” Ophir said.

“In a time of political polarization, when uncertainty and anxiety are high, knowing that you’re not alone in your battle means a lot to people struggling with the emotional, financial, and social implications of the current moment,” he later continued.

Ophir said that researchers have been warning about racial disparities in journalism and media for decades, and that “it is quite stunning to hear how rare non-white hosts remain in the media today, including in a progressive liberal outlet like MSNBC.”

Hendershot said that it’s great when people who are “in positions of power and have white privilege and know that they do” speak up for people within their organization who represent marginalized groups, but that “ultimately it’s got to be more than talk.”

“People have to put their money where their mouth is,” she said, pointing to forms of protests as a potential example for how one could seek to make changes at their media organization happen.

She said elsewhere that she felt Maddow made important points about the loss of anchors of color in her remarks about the MSNBC shakeup, but that she felt the host could have “been a bit tougher” on the network considering the current political climate we’re living in.

“I would love to see her take five minutes to talk about, not just MSNBC, but the bigger context of all of these media outlets ... ‘obeying in advance,’” she said, adding, “that’s the bigger picture that is so disturbing.”

News organizations need to continue its responsibility to the public — even amid wide news cycle fatigue.

People everywhere have expressed feeling overwhelmed and powerless by the news cycle since Trump took office last month.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) addressed this issue during an Instagram Live earlier this month, saying that the Trump administration is intentionally trying to make people feel overwhelmed, and that the tactic is known as “flood the zone.”

“Flood the zone” is when a government does “so much at once … that you feel overwhelmed and paralyzed,” she said at the time.

Ophir said that “journalists should continue to stick to their values and professional norms” during these times. He added that journalists should do their best to keep the “public informed while scrutinizing the legality of reforms and decisions,” and that they should provide the “public with as much context and tools to understand the implications” of the Trump administration’s actions.

“We need to continue supporting journalism in these trying times, and journalists should continue to do their best to continue supporting us and our democracy as well,” he later continued. “And yes, keeping our newsrooms diverse and allowing more voices to be heard was always a key part of that process.”

Hendershot said that while she understands the widespread news cycle fatigue, it’s important for the public to understand that we are living in a “more extreme situation,” than we were during Trump’s first term as president.

“News is more important than ever,” she said.