In firing Melissa Harris-Perry, MSNBC chose white-male mediocrity over real intellect
http://qz.com/628587/in-firing-melissa-harris-perry-msnbc-chose-white-male-mediocrity-over-intellect/?utm_source=YPL
For the past four years, political commentator Melissa Harris-Perry has been a shining light of intellect and sanity on MSNBC. But after an email in which Harris-Perry protested her treatment by network leadership was released publicly on Feb. 26, MSNBC officially severed ties with one of the most credible, authoritative, and intelligent assets in its arsenal....
Now, after shamefully cutting back her screen time over the last few months and pre-empting her coverage with incremental campaign-cycle news, the network’s top brass have canceled her eponymous show. Why? For being what she always was: a confident, intelligent, forthright woman who will not accept anything less than the professional courtesy she deserves....
Harris-Perry’s departure comes at a time when MSNBC, a one-time liberal bastion of cable news, is in flux. The network recently adopted a new slogan–the “Place for Politics”—and it has accordingly scaled back its roster of opinion-makers while boosting its straight political news coverage, perhaps in an effort to position itself as more ideologically neutral. Ronan Farrow and Joy Reid have been demoted to correspondent roles, and Rev. Al Sharpton was shuffled out of primetime to Sunday mornings. Meanwhile MSNBC has expanded roles for the likes of Rachel Maddow, Brian Williams, and the co-anchors of Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough....
It didn’t have to be this way. When the network hired trans advocate and writer Janet Mock in 2014, it seemed to be making an active effort to include voices that news audiences wouldn’t find on CNN (and certainly not on Fox). Likewise when executives gave Harris-Perry carte blanche to feature writers, thinkers, and activists of color like Jelani Cobb, Akhil Reed Amar, Cristina Beltrán, and Cornell William Brooks, even as upwards of 75% of guests on shows like Face the Nation and Meet the Press were white men.
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