New York (AFP) – The head of the left-leaning US news channel MSNBC has quit, a source at the network told AFP Tuesday, just days before Donald Trump returns to the White House threatening to silence critical coverage. Major US media groups are watching Trump’s return with mounting concern as the Republican has called for networks broadcasting unfavorable material to be taken off the air or have their licenses stripped. A source briefed on the departure insisted that the exit of Rashida Jones, the first Black woman to run a major US cable news operation, was not linked to an expected post-election ratings dip. And Jones was not pushed, the source added.
“(Jones) has made the decision to step down as president of MSNBC after an extraordinary tenure leading the network,” Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBCUniversal Media Group, MSNBC’s parent, wrote in a memo to staff seen by AFP. Jones, in the post since February 2021, said in her own memo to colleagues that she would stay on for the next few months to support her successor Rebecca Kutler, previously the channel’s content strategy supremo. MSNBC has defined itself in recent years with a highly critical line on Trump, overtaking cable news stalwart CNN to become the second most-watched US channel — but trailing conservative favorite Fox News, a gap that widened in the final weeks of the 2024 presidential campaign.
Jones’s exit comes as MSNBC’s overall parent company Comcast seeks to spin off its cable channels into a company separate from its entertainment division, the jewel in the crown of which is DreamWorks Pictures.
As well as threatening action against the media companies themselves, Trump has said he wants to go after journalists personally. He has also suggested that journalists who refuse to give up the sources of stories damaging to the president-elect and his incoming administration could be jailed, along with their editors and publishers. His most aggressive threats could be difficult to pursue given constitutionally enshrined media protections, but costly lawsuits could prove a drain on some news organizations. Some companies have already appeared to take on a deferential posture toward the incoming administration.
In mid-December, the ABC News network, owned by Disney Group, agreed to pay $15 million in damages to resolve defamation lawsuits brought by Trump, linked to its reporting on litigation against the incoming president. Days later, Trump sued a local newspaper, the Des Moines Register, and a pollster who had predicted ahead of the election that he would lose the state of Iowa. In a surprise move that drew criticism from viewers and pundits, former Republican Joe Scarborough and his wife Mika Brzezinski, hosts of MSNBC’s flagship “Morning Joe” program, visited the president-elect at his luxurious Mar-a-Lago residence the day after his win.
© 2024 AFP
