Monday was Joy Reid's last day at MSNBC. She did a lovely farewell show, playing the crew on her show out with a sweet shoutout to every one of them. This was her last day because MSNBC management decided they'd cancel her show effective immediately, along with Alex Wagner after Rachel Maddow goes back to one day a week, and Katie Phang's show too, slated to end in April.
Rachel Maddow had some thoughts about Joy:
An even bigger programming change is at 7 p.m., 7 p.m.nEastern, where Joy Reid's show, The Reidout, ended tonight.
And Joy is not taking a different job in the network. She is leaving the network altogether. And that is very, very, very hard to take.
I am 51 years old. I have been gainfully employed since I was 12. And I have had so many different kinds of jobs, you wouldn't believe me if I told you.
But in all of the jobs I have had, in all of the years I have been alive, there is no colleague for whom I have had more affection and more respect than Joy Reid.
I love everything about her. I have learned so much from her. I have so much more to learn from her. I do not want to lose her as a colleague here at MSNBC. And personally, I think it is a bad mistake to let her walk out the door.
It is not my call, and I understand that, but that's what I think.
It's what I think too. I think dumping Joy Reid is one of the biggest mistakes MSNBC will make now or ever. And, as Maddow notes, she's not the only one. MSNBC is dumping every person of color who sits in an anchor chair: Joy Reid, Alex Wagner, Katie Phang.
Rachel again:
I will tell you, it is also unnerving to see that on a network where we've got two — count them, two — non-white hosts in primetime, both of our non-white hosts in primetime are losing their shows, as is Katie Fang on The Weeknd.
And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them.
That feels indefensible, and I do not defend it.
Nor should she defend it, but it definitely feels like MSNBC is catering to all those anti-DEI bigots in Washington, DC.
Finally, Rachel scolded them for the harm they're doing to the rank and file employees who work on these shows.
From your side of the TV screen, you will mostly see changes in terms of who is in the anchor chair.
And actually, everybody who is going to be in anchor chairs from here on out are great colleagues and great at what they do, and you are not going to be disappointed in who is on our air and what you're going to be seeing.
But one thing you cannot necessarily see is that the people who get our shows on the air, they're really being put through the ringer.
Dozens of producers and staffers, including some who are among the most experienced and most talented and most specialist producers in the building, are facing being laid off.
They're being invited to reapply for new jobs.
That has never happened at this scale in this way before, when it comes to programming changes, presumably because it's not the right way to treat people, and it's inefficient and it's unnecessary, and it kind of drops the bottom out of whether or not people feel like this is a good place to work, and so we don't generally do things that way.
Maybe all of our folks, including most of the people who are getting this very show on the air right now, maybe they will all get new jobs here, and I hope they do.
But in the meantime, being put in this kind of limbo, the anxiety and the discombobulation is off the charts at a time when this job already is extra stressful and difficult.
It is not news for me to tell you that the press and freedom of the press are under attack in a way that is really—it's a big deal for our country.
It's very visceral for us here.
I know that the business of the press is not an easy thing, and I know that no job is forever.
But I think I'm safe in saying, for all of us anchors who you know through the TV, please know that what pains us the most is not what happens to us.
It is what happens to our co-workers on whom we depend and who you don't necessarily know, but we respect and love them and depend on them, and did I mention we respect them?
This is a difficult time in the news business, but it does not need to be this difficult.
We welcome new voices to this place and some familiar voices to new hours.
It's going to be great, honestly, and we want to grow and succeed and reach more people than ever and be resilient and stay here forever.
I also believe, and I bet you believe, that the way to get there is by treating people well, finding good people, good colleagues, doing good work with them, and then having their back.
That we could do a lot better on, a lot better.
Joy signed off pointing people to her social media and her Substack. Perhaps she and Jim Acosta can start something up for news and commentary, because MSNBC is just about cooked.
