HEH, INDEED: Joy Reid, a Rare Voice of Moderation on MSNBC, Gets the Axe.

During the 2022 election, for example, Reid was one of the first media personalities to acknowledge that the word “inflation” was “not part of the normal lexicon” for most Americans until nefarious Republicans “taught people the word” in order to attack Joe Biden. Following Trump’s victory in 2024, Reid channeled the anxieties of working Americans who couldn’t believe that Harris had lost despite waging a “flawlessly run” campaign and being endorsed by Queen Latifah, who “never endorses anyone.” Reid expressed shock in 2020 when a Latino congressman suggested “Latinx” was not “the preferred term” among actual Latinos.

These insightful remarks persuaded MSNBC to give Reid an annual salary believed to be in the range of $3 million. Network executives clearly valued her cerebral reporting and “in-depth interviews with politicians and other newsmakers,” according to the New York Times. In November, for instance, Reid interviewed a Yale psychologist who argued Democrats were “entitled” to shun their Trump-supporting family members because it “may be essential for your mental health.” For reasons that defy explanation, Reid was one of the lowest-rated hosts on MSNBC. Last Thursday’s episode of The ReidOut drew just 59,000 viewers in the coveted 25-54 age demographic. For the sake of comparison, Laura Ingraham’s competing 7 p.m. program on Fox News drew 389,000 viewers in the demographic. The vast majority of MSNBC viewers are memory care patients whose home health aides forgot to turn off the television, according to a Washington Free Beacon analysis.

Reid’s sway at MSNBC was such that the network didn’t even bother to figure out what really happened to Reid’s old blog after internet sleuths uncovered a series of bigoted posts in 2017. Reid accused “hackers” of having “accessed and manipulated” her blog to post hateful content—targeting gays, Jews, and Muslims—that was “fabricated.” She urged the FBI to investigate. The results of the alleged investigation were never released, but Reid was promoted to a full-time host in 2020. Some might view the cancellation of Reid’s show as a blessing in disguise because it will allow the tenacious journalist to spend more time hunting down the real hackers and bringing them to justice.

Alas, there is likely a more sinister explanation for Reid’s departure from the MSNBC airwaves. She is a proud and outspoken black woman. Many have already suggested white supremacy is to blame, especially since the news comes several weeks after another proud black woman—former MSNBC president Rashida Jones—allegedly resigned from the network. Another woman of color, Alex Wagner, was expected to return to MSNBC in April to resume hosting the 9 p.m. hour, but that plan has been scrapped. Jen Psaki, a white woman who served as Biden’s press secretary, is now widely expected to take over that time slot for at least one night per week. It remains to be seen what MSNBC’s alleged anti-blackness means for the future of Al Sharpton, the notorious anti-Semite who still hasn’t been fired after his nonprofit group received $500,000 from the Harris campaign before Sharpton interviewed the candidate in October 2024.

Yes, truly racism is to blame in this case: Racism, Not Ratings? Progressives Rally to Joy Reid’s Defense after MSNBC Firing.

Reid’s ouster was orchestrated by MSNBC’s new president, Rebecca Kutler, according to the New York Times. Taking The ReidOut’s place will be panel show featuring commentary from Symone Sanders Townsend, Michael Steele, and Alicia Menendez, who are the current co-hosts of MSNBC’s weekend morning show, The Weekend.

But despite Reid’s falling ratings and her show’s penchant for peddling falsehoods and inflammatory rhetoric, liberals were devastated to see the show go – with many insisting that her exit was merely a product of her race.

“She’s a blunt Black woman, so of course her show is canceled. Not lost on any of us,” Wajahat Ali said on Bluesky.

“Everytime MSNBC has a ‘shakeup’ the black woman solo led show is ALWAYS the first to go,” the Daily Beast’s Danielle Moodie said.

The Nation’s Elie Mystal said that we have Reid to thank for his television career, “as do so many other Black voices y’all never would have heard of if not for her.”

“And *that’s* why she’s gone. They can treat black folks as interchangeable, but everybody Black knows that Joy was indispensable,” he wrote.

Meanwhile, former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann pointed his ire at MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, claiming that the network had a “Joe Scarborough problem,”rather than a “Joy Reid problem.”  “Until he is fired, MSNBC will not recover. Shuffling tepid shows in and out does nothing,” he said. Many liberals were upset that Scarborough and his co-host Mika Brzezinski sat down with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in November after his big electoral win.

Not surprisingly, Olbermann went full Howard Beale over Reid’s firing:

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….

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….

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.

I’d say that I agree fully with Olbermann and demand that everyone boycott the obviously raaaaaacist channel, but that’s something I got a head start on at least twenty years ago.

Incidentally, Al Sharpton remains “unexpectedly” quiet over Reid’s firing. But then, that’s how he earns his pay from NBC and Comcast.