US television host Joy Reid, a progressive political commentator who has been outspoken on the Gaza war, is leaving American channel MSNBC after her prime-time show was cancelled.
In a major shake-up at the channel, presenter Ayman Mohyeldin, a correspondent for NBC during the month-long 2014 Gaza war, is also losing his weekend evening show.
The changes, announced in a memo to staff by the network's new president Rebecca Kutler, will see Reid's show The ReidOut replaced in coming weeks by a new programme with three presenters.
Reid's show has been credited with giving voices to historically marginalised people, and her work has been recognised with accolades in the media industry. It has been a fixture of MSNBC's evening schedule since 2020, featuring interviews with politicians and other news makers on issues of race, culture and social justice.
As rumours of her departure swirled at the weekend, Reid joined a call streamed on YouTube to defend her stance on the Gaza war and other contentious issues.
“We as the American people have a right to object to little babies being bombed and where I come down on that is, I’m not sorry. I am not sorry that I stood up for those things, because those things are of God,” she said.
Reid said her show “talked about what the president is doing that is subversive to the constitution, that is injurious to our liberty”.
In an emotional interview with podcast Win with Black Women, Reid said that what she had been doing on her show "had value" and that she was "proud of it". She said she had felt anger and guilt over the network's decision, as it meant members of her team would also lose their jobs as well.
The National has contacted MSNBC for comment. Reid's professional website appeared to be down on Tuesday.
Mohyeldin, an Egyptian-born political commentator who has worked for Al Jazeera and CNN, received praise for his Gaza reporting in 2014, with critics saying it departed from pro-Israel coverage dominating mainstream US media.
He hosted several shows at MSNBC before landing his eponymous programme Ayman in 2021, in a prime-time weekend evening slot. Mohyeldin will now take on the evening edition of The Weekend.
In her memo to staff, which was seen by AP, Ms Kutler said there would be several other changes to the channel's weekday and weekend line-up – most of which are set to go into effect in April.
She said she had hoped to share the changes with staff directly and “understand the frustration that you first learnt about this over the weekend and not from me”, referring to leaks to the media.
“Joy Reid is leaving the network and we thank her for her countless contributions over the years,” said Ms Kutler, who took over as president in February.
NBC veteran Lester Holt also announced that he would be stepping down as presenter of the network’s flagship Nightly News broadcast by early summer to expand his role in its Dateline programming.
Rachel Maddow will revert to hosting the channel's 9pm slot once a week, Ms Kutler added.
The shake-up arrives amid an ownership transition for NBC. MSNBC is set to no longer have any corporate connection to NBC News once a spin-off formally takes effect later this year. The network’s ratings have outperformed rival CNN but lagged behind ratings leader Fox News.
Reid's exit from the liberal-leaning channel also comes amid pressure in the US from the new administration of President Donald Trump for corporations to shift to the right. Several major companies have ditched or scaled back so-called diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes in recent months, including Facebook, Pepsi and Goldman Sachs.
Mr Trump, who has previously described sections of the US news media as “the enemy of the people”, praised the cancellation of Reid’s show on his platform Truth Social.
“Based on her ratings, which were virtually non-existent, she should have been 'canned' long ago, along with everyone else who works there,” he wrote.