Maddow’s Back! The Resistance Is Rising! So Why Is MSNBC’s Future Uncertain?
Inside 30 Rock — the iconic skyscraper synonymous with a satirical TV sitcom — a select group of prominent Comcast executives are busy drawing up lists. In a process that internally has been likened to the Hunger Games, the top brass, including NBC’s Cesar Conde and Rebecca Blumenstein and MSNBC’s Rebecca Kutler, are dividing anchors, hosts and correspondents into a few buckets as MSNBC prepares to spin off from its mothership, NBC News. There are those NBC News wants and MSNBC doesn’t. The ones MSNBC is keen to nab that NBC is happy to see go. And the lucky few whom both networks would love to keep, granting those journalists the luxury of deciding between the two. Sunday Today Show anchor and Morning Joe co-host Willie Geist is one of the rare exceptions that will be allowed to appear on both channels. But layoffs await a sizable number of those neither network wants.
Related Knowledge Center: Inside the newsroom
As newsrooms struggle with rickety business models and precarious finances — as well as new technologies — they are deploying an array of editorial responses.
The Times and its critics | Washington Post mortem
Related Knowledge Center: State of the business model
The traditional journalism business model has long since collapsed, and news organizations have shrunk or disappeared entirely. While a number of promising experiments are under way, the public has not shown a willingness to buy what news organizations are selling.
Related Knowledge Center: Democracy and politics
News organizations are scrambling to find a coverage approach that adequately informs the American public about the country’s slide from democracy to authoritarian rule.