MSNBC Anxiously Enters a New Trump Era Good morning. Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski may have been joking when they quipped about being fired in a year amid Comcast’s plans to spin off its NBCUniversal cable TV networks, including MSNBC. But the anxieties at MSBNC are real as the network handles plummeting ratings and some viewers apparently appalled by Joe and Mika’s trip to Mar-a-Lago, writes Natalie Korach. On Wednesday morning, according to one source present, MSNBC president Rashida Jones and NBCUniversal Media Group chairman Mark Lazarus assured staff, including Rachel Maddow and Katy Tur, that the plan would “unlock the value” of the cable assets.
“There are no ornaments on this tree at the moment. We have to wait to see what this actually means,” the source told Korach, noting that MSNBC is “no worse off” than yesterday but said some of their “colleagues think we’re on the way to the dumpster.”
Elsewhere, we’ve been talking about Donald Trump’s unequivocal power grab: The president-elect has recently named as his picks for top posts a slew of attorneys—yes, including Matt Gaetz—who, writes James Robenalt, “may be more inclined to take an aggressive stance toward executive power” and could seek to “minimize the limits—the guardrails—that might otherwise restrict what a president can do.”
Plus, Clive Irving looks at Prince Harry’s increasingly isolating legal war against Rupert Murdoch over alleged unlawful information gathering by British journalists and private investigators. Thanks for reading.
Meena Ganesan, senior editor |
