Pleasure Reid claimed MSNBC bosses have been “horrified” by her presence on social media and repeatedly pressured her to cease tweeting earlier than in the end canceling her primetime present, “The ReidOut.”
In a wide-ranging dialog with Katie Couric launched Monday on Reid’s new podcast, the previous MSNBC host claimed that administration on the left-leaning, Comcast-owned community discouraged her from partaking with audiences on-line, fearing it gave her an excessive amount of autonomy.
“Anytime I would tweet anything, I would get calls — I would get, ‘Please get off Twitter, we hate it,’” Reid mentioned.
“They just don’t like that it pulls their talent and their reporters out of their control because now you’re not running what you’re tweeting through Standards and Practices. It’s giving your personality directly to the audience, which they don’t like because it’s no longer managed and curated by them.”
Reid’s MSNBC program “The ReidOut” was canceled in February as a part of a broader programming overhaul led by the community’s new president, Rebecca Kutler. Reid’s ultimate broadcast aired on Feb. 24.
The cancellation occurred amid a network-wide restructuring that additionally affected different hosts, together with Alex Wagner and Katie Phang.
Reid’s remarks come forward of the June 9 launch of “The Joy Reid Show,” a brand new podcast and YouTube sequence.
She posted the interview with Couric to her web site and YouTube channel, marking her most candid remarks but about her February departure from MSNBC.
The community gave no public rationalization when it canceled “The ReidOut,” sparking hypothesis that the choice was a part of a broader post-election shakeup following Donald Trump’s return to the presidency.
A number of non-white anchors have been let go across the identical time. Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann known as it “an MSNBC purge so brutally racist it makes you think it was done by [Elon] Musk.”
When Couric requested her straight what led to her dismissal, Reid mentioned she’s nonetheless uncertain.
“I’ve been asked this so many times,” she mentioned. “And people think that I’m just saying it to BS, but I’m being honest with you — I don’t know.”
Reid mentioned she realized concerning the cancellation not lengthy after exchanging emails with MSNBC’s public relations staff celebrating the present’s NAACP Picture Award win.
Reid insisted the cancellation wasn’t associated to poor rankings.
“It wasn’t ratings,” she mentioned. “We had just had a ratings meeting a couple of weeks before that talking about the fact that our show … other than Rachel Maddow, we were down the least” within the wake of Trump’s win.
“We were just told that we were doing … that we were holding on pretty well,” Reid added. “And then, you know, it’s not like the ratings have gotten better since I’ve been gone.”
She described the best way the information was delivered as “scripted” and “just very perfunctory,” noting she obtained no particular purpose for the present’s finish.
“I wasn’t told ‘The ratings were terrible,’ ‘It’s something you did,’ ‘You tweeted a terrible thing,’” she mentioned, including that she had already been “extra careful” on-line amid rising considerations contained in the community about expertise on social media.
Though Reid mentioned she doesn’t essentially consider her outspoken criticism of Trump was the explanation for her present’s cancellation, she acknowledged it could have performed a task.
“I’m a black woman doing the thing. You know what I mean?” she mentioned.
“I think that there’s a difference for Trump in hearing the kinds of criticisms, specifically, out of a black woman. It bothers him in a way it doesn’t bother him like anything else.”
“There’s a fear of him,” Reid added. “We’re seeing it everywhere.”
Reid has confronted a number of controversies through the years, starting with the resurfacing of homophobic weblog posts from her defunct website, “The Reid Report.”
Initially claiming her weblog was hacked, Reid later admitted there was no proof to assist that, although she maintained the posts didn’t mirror her views.
She additionally apologized for previous tweets mocking Ann Coulter and Lindsey Graham with sexist and homophobic language.
In 2020, Reid was accused of Islamophobia after evaluating Trump’s rhetoric to that of radical Islamic leaders, prompting backlash from Muslim-American teams.
Extra just lately, throughout MSNBC’s 2024 election protection, she known as Florida a “fascist-type government” and criticized white ladies voters in North Carolina for not supporting Kamala Harris, blaming them for the state’s failure to guard abortion rights.
Reid additionally stirred controversy along with her response to the assassination try on Trump, suggesting his personal rhetoric might have helped incite political violence.
Critics accused her of downplaying the seriousness of the assault and known as for her present to be canceled.
The Publish has sought remark from MSNBC.
