MSNBC Names Rashida Jones President
MSNBC is an American news-based pay television cable channel, owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal (a subsidiary of Comcast). It provides NBC News coverage as well as its own reporting and political commentary on current events.
MSNBC and its website were founded in 1996 under a partnership between Microsoft and General Electric‘s NBC unit, hence the network’s naming. Although they had the same name, msnbc.com and MSNBC maintained separate corporate structures and news operations. msnbc.com was headquartered on the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington, while MSNBC operated out of NBC’s headquarters in New York City. Microsoft divested itself of its stakes in the MSNBC channel in 2005 and in msnbc.com in July 2012. The general news site was rebranded as NBCNews.com, and a new msnbc.com was created as the online home of the cable channel.
In the late summer of 2015, MSNBC revamped its programming; the moves were in sharp contrast to previous programming decisions at the network. MSNBC sought to sharpen its news image by entering into a dual editorial relationship with its organizational parent NBC News. MSNBC Live, the network’s flagship daytime news platform, was expanded to cover over eight hours of the day. Phil Griffin is the president and director of day-to-day operations at MSNBC. On June 29, 2015, MSNBC launched a 1080i high-definition feed.
As of September 2018, approximately 87 million households in the United States (90.7 percent of pay television subscribers) were receiving MSNBC. In 2019, MSNBC ranked second among basic cable networks averaging 1.8 million viewers, behind rival Fox News, averaging 2.5 million viewers.
Rashida Jones currently serves as senior vice president for MSNBC News.
MSNBC named Rashida Jones as the network’s president, people familiar with the matter said, a major shake-up at a news channel that has raised its profile with political coverage but struggled to keep pace with rivals this year.
Ms. Jones, who is currently serving as senior vice president for MSNBC
News, is succeeding longtime network president Phil Griffin, catapulting her to one of the highest echelons in television news and making her the first Black female executive to run a major general news cable network.
Ms. Jones will officially take over for Mr. Griffin in February, NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde said in a note to employees Monday.
Scripps Hall of Famer Rashida Jones revitalizing MSNBC, SHSJC
She also is putting a charge into her alma mater as co-chair of the SHSJC Advisory Board.
Jones (shown below right with SHSJC Dean B. Da’Vida Plummer) and co-chair Marc Johnson, managing director of the New York office of APCO Worldwide, are guiding the Scripps Howard School as it boosts its journalism and strategic communication offerings, introduces a more flexible curriculum, teaches innovative ways to deliver news and information, and strengthens its assessment measures.
The elevation of Ms. Jones, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, is the first major executive change made by Mr. Conde, who took over the NBCUniversal unit in May. NBCUniversal is a unit of Comcast Corp. CMCSA 0.89%
Ms. Jones has been in NBCUniversal’s news group for seven years, serving as an executive producer and managing editor before being promoted to her current position. In her most recent role, she helped oversee coverage of the coronavirus pandemic and the 2020 presidential election.
“If you’ve worked with Rashida on any of those endeavors, you know that she has an outstanding track record and she leads with a laser-like focus and grace under pressure,” Mr. Conde said in his note.
Mr. Griffin approached Mr. Conde after the election about leaving, Mr. Conde said in his note. A person familiar with the discussions said that Mr. Conde was already looking to make a change at the network.
Mr. Griffin has been at MSNBC News for a quarter-century and has been president of the division since 2008.
Mr. Conde, who became chairman of NBCUniversal News Group earlier this year, is already beginning to put his stamp on the company’s news division. Shortly after he took over as head of NBCUniversal’s news group, Mr. Conde challenged the division to aim for 50% of its staff to be women or people of color in the coming years.
He approved a decision to appoint Joy Reid as host of MSNBC’s 7 p.m. slot, which was vacant after “Hardball” host Chris Matthews abruptly resigned in March after he was accused of making inappropriate flirtatious comments to a guest and comparing Sen. Bernie Sanders’s victory in the Nevada caucuses to the World War II Nazi takeover of France.
MSNBC is filling Ms. Reid’s old weekend time slots with Tiffany Cross and Jonathan Capehart, former guest hosts for Ms. Reid. Ms. Cross and Mr. Capehart are both Black. Mr. Conde also approved the decision to give the journalist Alicia Menendez a weekend prime-time anchor slot. Ms. Menendez is Latina.
Mr. Conde approved a decision to appoint Shepard Smith, a former Fox News anchor, to host a show on NBCUniversal’s CNBC financial news network.
Like Fox News and CNN, MSNBC has logged an increase in ratings tied to the presidential election, but it often has struggled to keep pace with its rivals when politics takes a back seat to other breaking news. MSNBC’s viewership has increased dramatically in recent years.
MSNBC’s mix of news and political commentary has at times been a source of tension within NBC News. Some NBC News talent that appear on MSNBC have expressed concern that the strong liberal opinion shows in the evening lineup hurt the independence of the news operations, people with knowledge of the manner said. There are similar issues at conservative Fox News between its commentators and news personalities.
