MSNBC is almost dead. Long live MSNBC.
I say the first part because it’s true in fact. On Nov. 15, the network — now spun off from parent company NBCUniversal — will rebrand itself as MS NOW, which is an acronym that stands for “We Could Have Worked Harder On This Rebrand.” (Or “My Source for News, Opinion and the World,” take your pick.)
I say the second part because it’s true in spirit. Sure, MSNBC won’t have the assets of NBC News to pull from, but that didn’t really do a very good job of pulling them into the realm of reality when they did. Reports indicate they’ll still be the same ol’ wokeness depot they’ve always been, with all of the cognitive dissonance that perma-wokeness requires to maintain.
And if you don’t believe me, consider this: As part of their $20 million rebrand campaign, they apparently had to hire black actors to appear alongside their very white on-air staff to look diverse enough for their audience.
The New York Times reported on the campaign Nov. 4, calling it an “effort to avoid confusion.”
“Rachel Maddow intoning the preamble to the U.S. Constitution. Maya Angelou reciting her poem ‘Human Family.’ (‘We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike’),” Michael M. Grynbaum’s piece about the ad blitz began. “In a new ad campaign that debuts on Tuesday, MSNBC will strive to reclaim the idea of patriotism for its left-leaning, Trump-weary audience.”
“Weary” is the appropriate word; as Grynbaum noted, the name change comes at a particularly problematic time for the network, with its audience down 34 percent vs. 2024. While generally speaking, ratings are down in the year after an election, CNN’s audience is down only 21 percent, while Fox News’ ratings are up 18 percent.
To promote “MS NOW,” they’ve rolled out the “Same Mission. New Name” campaign, with help from Manhattan-based marketing agency Sibling Rivalry.
Again from the piece:
Do you watch MSNBC?
The team focused on basic constitutional rights to remind unsettled audiences that they are not alone in yearning for a less chaotic America.
One 60-second spot pairs swelling string music with Ms. Maddow reading the opening of the Constitution. Footage of modern-day protesters and turn-of-the-century suffragists are interspersed with MSNBC anchors like Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski; the married morning-show couple appear just as Ms. Maddow says the words “ensure domestic tranquillity.” The new MS NOW logo, a kind of abstracted American flag, appears at the end.
Another ad features Ms. Angelou reciting her poem at the United Nations in 1996 over footage of a diverse Americana of citizens. The ad closes with a tagline: “We the People.”
Touching stuff, really. I’m almost ready to stand up and put my hand over my heart, then start reciting the words every MSNBC viewer knows by heart: “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the LGBT movement outside of the Stonewall Inn. One nation, unless we lose, unwatchable, with liberty and social justice for us.”
However, in proof that reality manages to lap my satire several times, it turns out that the promo features a large number of black actors to appear in it, including one whose résumé includes (if only I had the capacity to make stuff like this up) a credit from the YouTube series “Sad-A** Black Folk.”
From the Washington Free Beacon, on Tuesday:
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 audience — the largest in cable news — when its primetime and morning anchor lineup is overwhelmingly white. …
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. It also extensively uses black actors without identifying them as paid performers, a Washington Free Beacon review found. The actors, Alex Mason, Shekaya Sky McCarthy, and Marcel Noel, stare off into the distance as Maddow speaks of forming “a more perfect union.” Mason is shown by himself, while McCarthy is pictured next to a black child, and Noel plays a coffee-drinking patron at a diner. …
The spot also features a black woman in military uniform embracing her child. They appear to be actors as well, although the Free Beacon could not identify them.
It’s worth noting that the only two black anchors that MSNBC/MS NOW featured in the spot were Michael Steele and Symone Sanders — co-hosts of an evening show, who only appear on-screen for a second.
This would be hilarious irony if it wasn’t part of a larger conversation about the future of MSNBC/MS NOW.
You may recall that when this shift was first announced, one of the first moves the network made was removing the highly remunerated, highly unwatchable Joy Reid from its lineup. Reid, aside from being a constant fount of schadenfreude for conservatives playing “Mystery Political Science Theater 3000” at home, is also black — and that fact didn’t go unnoticed by Maddow, who straight-up accused the network’s new suzerains of racism in firing both Reid and potentially other employees:
Wow. Rachel Maddow just did her MSNBC show and ripped MSNBC management for firing Joy Reid. She even implied that they were racist for firing multiple minority hosts.
If you were management, would you allow an employee to imply that you’re a racist? 🤔pic.twitter.com/nIYGS729kv
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) February 25, 2025
So here’s Maddow, nine months later, basically laundering her network’s whiteness through black actors while reading the preamble to the Constitution. They even hired two black hosts to replace Reid, it’s worth noting, and they were featured for less than a second — about as much time as the “Sad-A** Black Folk” thespian got.
I guess if you pay her and Maya Angelou enough money, they’ll pretty much ignore the obvious and drop one version of virtue-signaling for another one. The Maddow network may be MS NOW soon, but the on-brand rebrand shows that it’ll always be MSNBC in spirit.
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