The main shake-up at MSNBC continues to have an effect on each on-camera expertise and behind-the-scenes employees, with a brand new report claiming the vast majority of the workforce on Rachel Maddow‘s prime-time information present is being let go.
As reported by The Guardian on Tuesday (February 25), most of Maddow’s manufacturing workforce are set to lose their jobs, although sources instructed the outlet the employees shall be given the choice to assert severance or reapply for brand new roles on the community.
The publication notes that Maddow, who hosts MSNBC’s highest-rated present Mondays to Fridays, will get to maintain her govt producer, Cory Gnazza, along with a number of different senior producers. Nevertheless, the remainder of her workforce shall be axed, together with producers who labored on not too long ago canceled reveals hosted by Pleasure Reid, Katie Phang, Jonathan Capehart, Ayman Mohyeldin, and José Díaz-Balart.
On Monday (February 24), Maddow opened her present by talking out in opposition to MNSBC for canceling Reid’s present, along with Alex Wagner dropping her nightly prime-time present. “Personally, I feel it’s a dangerous mistake to let [Reid] stroll out the door. It’s not my name, and I perceive that. However that’s what I feel,” she mentioned.
She additionally known as it “unnerving” that “each of our non-white hosts in prime time are dropping their reveals, as is Katie Phang on the weekend.”
The Guardian stories that Maddow’s workforce was let go resulting from a “quirk” of how they labored on each Maddow’s and Wagner’s reveals. Maddow had beforehand scaled again to internet hosting solely Mondays however has returned to 5 nights every week for the primary 100 days of President Trump‘s time period. Wagner beforehand hosted Tuesday to Friday.
Jen Psaki, the previous Biden White Home press secretary, will take over the Tuesday to Friday slot as soon as Maddow returns to Mondays solely. Wagner will stay on as a senior political analyst for the community.
A community supply instructed the outlet these adjustments weren’t “widespread layoffs” however as an alternative a reallocation of producers to assist new applications and priorities. The brand new roles are mentioned to be posted internally first and wouldn’t be revealed externally till impacted staff have had an opportunity to reapply.
Maddow additionally addressed the staffing cuts on Monday’s present, telling her viewers, “Dozens of producers and staffers, together with some who’re among the many most skilled and most gifted and most specialist producers within the constructing are going through being laid off.”
She added, “They’re being invited to reapply for brand new jobs. That has by no means occurred at this scale on this method earlier than in relation to programming adjustments, presumably as a result of it’s not the correct method to deal with individuals.”