MSNBC may not be essentially the most controversial cable information channel on the market, nevertheless it has had its share of unhealthy PR in its time on the air.
From offensive feedback made by MSNBC hosts — on digicam and off — to office battle that performed out publicly, right here’s a timeline of our picks for the largest controversies from practically three many years of the community’s historical past.
2003: Michael Savage insults a prank caller with homophobic insults
Conservative radio host Michael Savage misplaced his MSNBC present, The Savage Nation, in July 2003 after dropping his cool with a prank caller on air. After the caller insulted Savage’s tooth, the host fired off a barrage of homophobic insults.
“Oh, you’re one of many sodomites!” Savage mentioned, per the San Francisco Chronicle. “You need to solely get AIDS and die, you pig! How’s that? Why don’t you see should you can sue me, you pig?”
In a press release, an MSNBC spokesperson mentioned that Savage “made a particularly inappropriate comment” and that “the choice to cancel this system was not a troublesome one.”
2007: Don Imus makes an abhorrent comment concerning the Rutgers ladies’s basketball crew
Shock jock Don Imus crossed the road with MSNBC in April 2007 when he made a racist and sexist comment — which TV Insider gained’t reprint — concerning the Rutgers College ladies’s basketball crew.
NBC Information mentioned the choice to chop ties with Imus “[came] because of an ongoing overview course of” that “[took] into consideration many conversations with our personal staff,” per The New York Instances.
2013: Alec Baldwin makes use of a homophobic slur
In November 2013, after actor Alec Baldwin was caught on tape yelling homophobic language at a paparazzo, MSNBC yanked the six-week-old speak present Up Late With Alec Baldwin off the air in what the community known as a “mutual parting,” per NBC Information.
Baldwin allegedly known as the photographer two homophobic slurs. He claimed he solely used one, not realizing it was a slur, and denied utilizing the opposite.
2013: Martin Bashir means that Sarah Palin ought to must eat feces
Only a week later, British journalist Martin Bashir resigned from MSNBC after weeks of controversy across the feedback he made on his self-named program about former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who had mentioned it was “going to be like slavery” when the U.S. needed to pay its nationwide debt.
In response, Bashir steered that Palin must be punished with somebody defecating in her mouth, in accordance with The Hollywood Reporter.
Bashir issued an apology in his resignation announcement, saying, “It’s my honest hope that every one of my colleagues, at this particular community, shall be allowed to deal with the problems that matter with out the distraction of myself or my ill-judged feedback.”
2016: Melissa Harris-Perry will get minimize after criticizing the community
In February 2016, TV host Melissa Harris-Perry refused to return to work at her self-named weekend MSNBC present after feeling preempted and sidelined in the course of the community’s presidential election protection, telling The New York Instances she hadn’t appeared on MSNBC in “weeks.”
In an e mail to coworkers, Harris-Perry wrote, “Right here is the truth: Our present was taken — with out remark or dialogue or discover — within the midst of an election season. After 4 years of constructing an viewers, creating a model, and creating belief with our viewers, we have been successfully and totally silenced.”
Harris-Perry additionally wrote within the e mail that she would “not be used as a software for his or her functions” and that she was “not a token, mammy, or little brown bobblehead.” She later instructed the Instances she didn’t suppose she was being denied airtime as a result of she was Black however mentioned on The View her therapy had racial implications. Days after the walkout, an MSNBC spokesperson instructed the Instances that the community and Harris-Perry have been parting methods.
2020: Chris Matthews exits MSNBC after a number of inappropriate feedback over time
Chris Matthews left his MSNBC present, Hardball, mid-broadcast in March 2020 after a short on-air assertion apologizing for his feedback about ladies. “We’re speaking right here about higher requirements than we grew up with, honest requirements,” he mentioned in that farewell, per the Los Angeles Instances. “Lots of it has to do with how we speak to one another. Compliments on a lady’s look that some males, together with me, may need as soon as incorrectly thought have been okay have been by no means okay, not then and definitely not at the moment. And for making such feedback up to now, I’m sorry.”
Days earlier, journalist Laura Bassett alleged in a GQ essay that Matthews inappropriately flirted together with her earlier than a 2016 interview. However Matthews had a historical past of inappropriate feedback. In 2006, he criticized Ann Coulter’s look, and the next yr, he known as Laura Ingraham “great-looking” and Erin Burnett “a knockout” on air, per Refinery29. And in 2016, he joked about needing “that Invoice Cosby tablet” earlier than interviewing Hillary Clinton, per The Reduce.
2024: NBC Information hires Ronna McDaniel, sparking outrage amongst MSNBC anchors
MSNBC anchors rebelled in opposition to community execs In March 2024 after NBC Information made a paid political analyst out of former Republican Nationwide Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, who was concerned in makes an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election outcomes, per CNN. MSNBC hosts Chuck Todd, Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough, Nicolle Wallace, and Rachel Maddow all objected to the addition of McDaniel to the NBC Information payroll.
Inside days, NBC Information modified course and let McDaniel go. “There is no such thing as a doubt that the final a number of days have been troublesome for the Information Group,” Cesar Conde, president of NBCUniversal Information Group, mentioned in a memo to workers. “After listening to the legit considerations of a lot of you, I’ve determined that Ronna McDaniel is not going to be an NBC Information contributor.”