Mika and I are excited to be staying with our Morning Joe family and friends who have been watching regularly for almost 20 years. We're also grateful for the vote of confidence [MS NOW President Rebecca Kutler and Versant CEO Mark Lazarus] have given us to stay with our Morning Joe team over the next four years.
A slick new civil rights-themed video promoting MSNBC's forced name change to MS NOW features paid black actors playing ordinary Americans, intercut with pensive shots of MSNBC's white primetime stars. The promotional spot, narrated by Rachel Maddow reading the Constitution, appears to be a ham-handed effort by MSNBC's new parent company, Versant, to cater to MSNBC's large black audiencethe largest in cable newswhen its primetime and morning anchor lineup is overwhelmingly white, led the Beacon's Collin Anderson and Thaleigha Rampersad before diving into the heart of the matter: It uses archival protest footage, video of Martin Luther King Jr., and Maddow's patriotic narration to portray MS NOW as a beacon of racial and social justice.