Rachel Maddow defended just lately fired MSNBC colleague Pleasure Reid Monday night time and instructed her viewers, “I believe it’s a dangerous mistake to let her stroll out the door.” The choice by the community to cancel “The ReidOut” additionally “feels indefensible,” she added.
She was additionally sad with MSNBC’s resolution to make workers on the present reapply for his or her positions. “It’s not the proper approach to deal with folks and its inefficient and it’s pointless and it sort of drops the underside out of whether or not folks assume this can be a good place to work,” Maddow mentioned.
Maddow started her present by asserting that Reid formally left the community in the present day, one thing that’s “very, very, very laborious to take.”
“I’m 51 years previous. I’ve been gainfully employed since I used to be 12. And I’ve had so many various sorts of jobs — you wouldn’t consider me if I instructed you,” she continued. “However in the entire jobs I’ve had, in the entire years I’ve been alive, there isn’t a colleague for whom I’ve had extra affection and extra respect than Pleasure Reid.”
“I like every part about her. I’ve realized a lot from her,” Maddow continued. “I’ve a lot extra to be taught from her. I don’t wish to lose her as a colleague right here at MSNBC. And, personally, I believe it’s a dangerous mistake to let her stroll out the door. It isn’t my name, and I perceive that. However that’s what I believe.”
She added that it’s “unnerving” that “on a community the place we now have bought two non-white hosts in prime time, each of our non-white hosts in prime time are shedding their reveals, as is Katie Phang on the weekend. And that feels worse than that, irrespective of who replaces them. That feels indefensible, and I don’t defend it.”
Maddow then drew consideration to different MSNBC workers who’re affected by the cancellation of Reid and Phang’s reveals: the individuals who work behind the scenes to get the reveals on the air.
“Dozens of producers and staffers, together with some who’re among the many most skilled and most proficient and most specialist producers within the constructing are dealing with being laid off,” she mentioned.
“They’re being invited to reapply for brand new jobs. That has by no means occurred at this scale on this means earlier than in terms of programming modifications, presumably as a result of it’s not the proper approach to deal with folks and it’s inefficient and it’s pointless, and it sort of drops the underside out of whether or not or not folks really feel like this can be a good place to work, and we don’t usually do issues that means.”
Anxiousness for impacted workers is “off the charts,” she mentioned. “At a time when this job already is additional nerve-racking and troublesome, it’s not information for me to let you know that the press and freedom of the press are below assault in a means that’s actually… It’s an enormous deal for our nation. It’s very visceral for us right here.”
“It is a troublesome time within the information enterprise, however it doesn’t must be this troublesome,” Maddow added. “We welcome new voices to this place and a few acquainted voices to new hours. It’s going to be nice, actually, and we wish to develop and succeed and attain extra folks than ever and to be resilient and keep right here eternally. I additionally consider, and I wager you consider, that the best way to get there’s by treating folks nicely.”
However “discovering good folks, good colleagues, doing good work with them, after which having their again,” she mentioned, “that we may do rather a lot higher on. Lots higher.”
Reid reacted with tears and “anger, rage, disappointment, and damage” to information that her present was canceled, she mentioned in a video shared on X Monday.
“I’ve been by each emotion, from anger, rage, disappointment, damage … feeling guilt that I let my group lose their jobs,” she mentioned throughout a video name with Win for Black Ladies.
“I attempt to not cry,” Reid additionally mentioned. “I attempt to not cry on TV, and I believe [this Zoom call] is sort of like me on TV, so I apologize.”
The cancellation is a part of Rebecca Kutler’s vision for the community shifting ahead. Anchor Alex Wagner will even get replaced through the 9 p.m. spot Tuesday-Friday, however will stay with the community as a correspondent.
Kutler changed Rashida Jones because the community’s chief final month. She joined the community in 2022 after being hand-selected by Jones and was a part of the group that oversaw the event of “Inside with Jen Psaki” and “The Weekend” — the latter of which has seen an rankings improve of 35% because it launched in January 2024.
Kutler can also be on a hiring spree and is on the lookout for a head of expertise, head of newsgathering, a Washington bureau chief, and a head of content material technique. Her plans embody establishing a MSNBC Washington Bureau and putting in a cohort of home and worldwide correspondents.
The community head has her eye on reporters from the Washington Put up and Politico, in addition to print shops and different networks. This consists of Politico’s Eugene Daniels and NYU regulation professor Melissa Murray.
The publish Rachel Maddow Calls Out MSNBC for Canceling Joy Reid’s Show: ‘Feels Indefensible’ | Video appeared first on TheWrap.
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