In hindsight, I should have seen the writing on the wall for Joy Reid. CNN pushed out Jim Acosta, after all. Then NBC’s Chuck Todd decided he was leaving the network — which, to be clear, is not as significant of a loss.
But you’ve probably heard of the “rule of three.” Culture writers once used it as the lowest threshold in the trendspotting game. This so-called rule has little to do with the supernatural but it's a reminder to pay close attention to certain corners of our world. It’s not so much a law as a wake-up call: open your eyes, something is happening.
But who’s going by the old rules anymore? America's mainstream newsrooms have been trying to and failing for nigh on a quarter century, steadily ceding attention to an ascendant right-wing media led by Fox News, websites and podcasters.
Since Donald Trump was re-elected, the news industry’s scythe-swinging hasn’t paused. It feels like the whole field is getting mowed to the dirt, with the latest layoffs hitting ABC’s news department. Disney abruptly shut down FiveThirtyEight.com and laid off its staff, Status reported on Wednesday, as part of a slew of cuts in its news division.
That bloodletting isn’t as high profile as MSNBC firing Reid and canceling “The ReidOut” on Feb. 23, along with shuttering Jonathan Capehart’s, José Díaz-Balart’s, Ayman Mohyeldin’s and Katie Phang’s shows.
MSNBC’s president Rebecca Kutler also yanked Alex Wagner from her weeknight slot, to which she was supposed to return once Rachel Maddow resumes her weekly cadence in April. Jen Psaki has been tapped to replace Wagner in the 9 p.m. slot instead.
That’s six cancellations, for those keeping count, although Reid’s ouster continues the “progressive” cable news outlet's trend of firing Black women who use their platforms to dig into race and class in politics. “The Cross Connection” host Tiffany Cross was fired in 2022. The network also sidelined Melissa Harris-Perry from covering the 2016 election before driving her out. There’s your three. I guess.
However, Reid’s loss has implications distinct from these demotions and from CNN setting Acosta adrift in late January, although anyone with eyes can reasonably deduce that both moves are appeasement gestures to a thin-skinned authoritarian driven to destroy legitimate news organizations. Reid did not pull punches or mince words when it came to explaining what this administration’s anti-diversity push means and its attack on civil rights.
Reid’s ouster continues the “progressive” cable news outlet's trend of firing Black women who use their platforms to dig into race and class in politics.
Acosta was a consistent pain for Trump during his first presidency, so even though CNN’s chiefs insisted his out-of-left-field shuffling off to midnight was simply a matter of restructuring, media analysts could see what was happening. Something similar may be afoot at MSNBC, although Status also reported Kutler told "ReidOut" staffers that the Trump administration did not play a role the network's decision to cancel their show.
In mid-February, Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr informed Brian Roberts, the CEO of NBC and MSNBC’s parent company Comcast, that his enforcement bureau would investigate whether NBC Universal was “promoting invidious forms of DEI in a manner that does not comply with FCC regulations.” The letter is dated Feb. 11; “The ReidOut” aired its final episode on Feb. 24.
NBC isn’t alone in being subjected to the scrutiny of Carr’s FCC. The agency is investigating PBS’ and NPR’s broadcast underwriting announcements as well as looking into complaints against ABC and CBS.
As a cable entity, MSNBC isn’t subject to FCC regulation, but it and other Comcast-owned cable channels are on the verge of being split from NBC News to become a new company called SpinCo.
With that in the works under a president bent on diminishing legacy news organizations and supplanting true journalism with propaganda that portrays him favorably, it certainly appears that MSNBC is getting rid of the anchor Trump would most like gone.
MSNBC is elevating “The Weekend” hosts Symone Sanders-Townsend, Alicia Menendez and Michael Steele to the 7 p.m. slot, perhaps to develop its answer to “The Five,” Fox News’ dominant roundtable show.
But that trio isn’t likely to focus on race or class with Reid’s sharpness, or to open the door to contributors who aren’t already Beltway-approved. As an enraged former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann pointed out on his podcast shortly after the news broke, Reid’s ratings may have been up and down, like the rest of her primetime peers. But she brought a unique value to MSNBC that can’t be replicated.
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“It's important that she's there for the people who want to identify with somebody who looks like Joy Reid and say, ‘That woman is out here trying to argue my point and is talking to me, and is bringing people who look like me and look like her on the television for the first time, some of them who are going to become superstars,’” he said.
“And if we ever get out of this . . . mess caused by lack of courage, often on places like MSNBC, often in places in the public discourse,” Olbermann continued, “if we're ever going to get out of this mess and restore this democracy, it's going to be because of people like Joy Reid, even you don’t agree with a . . . word she said.”
As for the other part, Maddow put it succinctly on Reid’s last day, saying, “I will tell you, it is also unnerving to see that on a network where we've got two, count ‘em, two, nonwhite hosts in primetime, both of our nonwhite hosts in primetime are losing their shows, as is Katie Phang on the weekend. And that feels worse than bad. That feels indefensible, and I do not defend it.”
MSNBC personnel shifts differ from the voluntary departures of CBS’ Norah O’Donnell and NBC’s Lester Holt from their network anchor chairs and Todd’s exit from NBC altogether, but it fits a general pattern of shrinkage in the information space. Budgets are being slashed, and salaries with them. (O’Donnell remains a senior correspondent at CBS while Holt, whose tenure as the anchor of NBC Nightly News ends this summer, plans to remain with “Dateline.”)
Newspapers have felt it for decades, part of a system whose fractures have yawned into complete breaks. The Washington Post, that one-time bastion of peerless journalism, has been shedding talent and the public’s trust at an alarming clip since Jeff Bezos blocked a Kamala Harris endorsement in the 2024 presidential election and gave $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund.
His latest feat came on Feb. 26 when he announced on Elon Musk’s X that the Post’s opinion pages would henceforth be devoted to supporting "personal liberties and free markets."
“Viewpoints opposing those pillars will be left to be published by others,” Bezos said. But his next observation is chilling. “There was a time when a newspaper, especially one that was a local monopoly, might have seen it as a service to bring to the reader’s doorstep every morning a broad-based opinion section that sought to cover all views. Today, the internet does that job.”
It really does. And Bezos’ Silicon Valley peers control the algorithms that determine which opinions gain the most extensive reach. Should you have one of them meddling in your operating systems, as Social Security employees discovered this week, you may be blocked from accessing “General News,” as Wired reported Thursday.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) blocked the browsing of sites such as The Washington Post, The New York Times and MSNBC from “government-furnished equipment.” One employee told Wired they couldn’t access local news sites either. But they could read news on Politico and Axios. Go figure.
Viewers have been tuning out the news since Trump’s re-election and consuming far less of it beforehand.
Meanwhile, the administration continues to bar the AP from entering the Oval Office and traveling on Air Force One with the press pool, the makeup of which has traditionally been determined by the White House Correspondents' Association. Favored access in the new regime has instead been granted to conservative influencers such as conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec and Collin Rugg.
Part of the job the Internet is doing coincides with and is contributing to hastening the decline of linear TV. Advertisers are following audiences to digital and streaming. And viewers have been tuning out the news since Trump’s re-election and consuming far less of it beforehand.
That will continue for the foreseeable future, either because the frenetic chaos of the news cycle has burned them out, or they’ve been conditioned by right-wing media to distrust any news outlet that isn’t part of their ecosystem.
As for the major broadcast figures who spent years cultivating the trust of millions, meaning O’Donnell and Holt, their departures won’t help their respective networks’ newsrooms.
I do not doubt that Tom Llamas, the NBC News Now evening anchor set to take over for Holt, will do a fine job. But he’s also an unfamiliar face to a broadcast audience that came to know Holt over decades. Broadcast news is a specific, middle-of-the-road animal whose viewers connect with the headline readers as opposed to the depth of the coverage itself.
Witness CBS News’ ratings drop-off following O’Donnell’s final broadcast in January for a preview of what Llamas is likely in for.
It’s also telling that he’s adding to his anchor duties instead of leaving his streaming show behind. Once he signs off from “Nightly News,” he’ll segue directly into helming “Top Story,” the online show he’s hosted since 2021.
This is where the news business has been heading, and where all those defenestrated newscasters I’ve mentioned already are. Acosta signed off his final CNN show and immediately launched his Substack video channel. Reid is also producing Substack content.
This trend is extending across the mediascape as top journalists with name recognition are striking out as solo operators who are subscriber-supported and not beholden to corporate interests (yet). There are many skilled and dedicated reporters tracking the list of this administration’s illegal actions, explaining how each mass firing, tariff threat and slashed budget affects the average American. They simply don’t have the wide reach of a broadcast media apparatus. They are outgunned.
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Right-wing media holds the loudest bullhorn and it has been setting the news agenda across the board for years. News consumers of all ages are turning to podcasts and YouTube for their information updates instead of network and cable. Those other hosts have name-brand recognition, but they aren’t buoyed by an ecosystem that gives weight and relevance to Megyn Kelly or Joe Rogan.
And if the Internet was already a basement, it is now one flooded with influencers devoted to delegitimizing reporting on unflattering truths by transforming Trump loyalists into heroes via memes. That’s been true for well over a decade, only now the belittling strategies that were once the province of 4chan trolls are sunnily marketing the executive branch’s overreach.
Right-wing media holds the loudest bullhorn and it has been setting the news agenda across the board for years.
On Thursday, the Washington Post published an article about the White House’s “rapid-response influencer operation, disseminating messages directly to Americans through the memes, TikToks and podcasts where millions now get their news.”
It continues, “After years of working to undermine mainstream outlets and neutralize critical reporting, Trump’s allies are now pushing a parallel information universe of social media feeds and right-wing firebrands to sell the country on his expansionist approach to presidential power.”
Optimists may tell you that this tumult amounts to the birthing agony that precedes a new age of journalism, and they’re probably correct to some degree. But what will the next generation look like, and how long will it take to recover from this age of expanding disinformation and propaganda?
A free press that deals in facts and promotes diverse viewpoints is the water that nourishes a healthy democracy. But for it to function, citizens have to seek out those wells and insist on them. And that feels harder to do as the public is conditioned to consume the fertilizer that's piling up.
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