\n<\/p>\n
\n\tThe cable outlet known until Saturday morning as MSNBC has long been known for newsy hot takes. Now it\u2019s putting some emphasis on reporters\u2019 news breaks.<\/p>\n
\n\tYes, that was MSNBC in September touting a dispatch from reporters Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian, who found the FBI in 2024 allegedly recorded current White House border czar Tom Homan accepting a paper bag containing $50,000 in cash from undercover agents posing as business executives. After President Trump took office, however, the probe was shut down, they reported. Suddenly, MSNBC had kicked off a news cycle, instead of just weighing in on it later in the evening.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe network, which just changed its name to MS NOW as it splits from NBC News and NBCUniversal, has gained some notice recently, but not necessarily always tied to the latest rhetorical zingers from Lawrence O\u2019Donnell, insights from Rachel Maddow or inside-the-government analysis from Jen Psaki or Nicolle Wallace. Where the network once relied entirely on the journalism apparatus of NBC News to inform its programming, it now has dozens of its own journalists trying to break stories about the White House, the Department of Justice, heck, maybe even Taylor Swift if it\u2019s something about which viewers might care. The network was first to secure Senator Alex Padilla in June for a live interview after he was forcibly removed from a Department of Homeland Security press conference. The network has even landed appearances by newsmakers who might not typically come on MSNBC, including U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune.<\/p>\n
\n\tThere are ambitious plans in place for a newly built journalism team. \u201cWe are planning to have our reporters talking to individuals in communities to understand their view, what America looks like now, and it will be, you know, it will be honest,\u201d says Joey Cole, who has joined MS NOW as vice president of planning after working as a producer for NBC News. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be raw.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tCould the infusion of home-grown journalism dim some of MS NOW\u2019s blue leanings? Facts, after all, can sometimes get in the way of a good primetime soliloquy. And what if some of the findings of MS NOW\u2019s news staff clash with what the network\u2019s primetime partisan die-hards want to hear?<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI think it\u2019s important to note that we are a news department. And in our jobs the news and the facts will take us to whatever conclusion \u2014 the facts take us to in the story. And that is what we are here to do, what we focus on,\u2019[says Scott Matthews, senior vice president of newsgathering for MS NOW. \u201cWe never really worry at all about, you know, who is going to like the story and who is going to not like the story,\u201d he adds. There is an expectation that the work of his staff will appear on both MS NOW\u2019s opinion program as well as its daytime news hours, and across TV and digital as well.<\/p>\n
\n\tUnder Rebecca Kutler, named president in February, the network has touted new editorial hires like David Rohde, Jacob Soboroff and Leonnig and Dilanian, as well as newsgathering alliances with AccuWeather and Sky News. It has also parted ways with some of its more vociferous left-leaning personalities, including Joy Reid and Katie Phang.<\/p>\n
\n\tStill, no one managing MS NOW, at least, sees a purple tinge. \u201c I think our hosts are just as aggressive in their thoughts of what they think about the news as they have ever been,\u201d says Kutler. \u201cI am incredibly proud of the lineup we have.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThere is good reason for MS NOW to seek a jolt from the headlines. While the network lures more audience overall than CNN, it lags both CNN and Fox News Channel among the viewers advertisers want most in news programming, people between 25 and 54. In the third quarter of 2025, MS NOW\u2019s viewership among that demographic was down 59% across the programming day, while CNN\u2019s fell 45% and Fox News\u2019 slipped 26%.<\/p>\n
\n\tCNN has already begun to play up its daily newsgathering. The Warner Bros. Discovery outlet recently launched a new \u201cAll Access\u201d subscription streaming service that burnishes feet-on-the-ground reportage from around the world. MS NOW, which aims to give its viewers news of the world along with opinion, will need to compete.<\/p>\n
\n\tBesides, MS NOW is one of the biggest assets in the portfolio of its new corporate parent, Versant, which is being spun off from Comcast and NBC over the next several weeks. The new company faces ongoing declines in its main lines of revenue, according to a recent research note from Craig Moffett, an analyst with MoffettNathanson.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u00a0Affiliate fees tied to Versant\u2019s networks fell 6.6% in 2024, according to research from the analyst, while ad revenue slipped 7.2%. MS NOW is projected to see ad sales fall by 11% in 2025, to $653.9 million, according to Kagan, a market-research unit of S&P Global Intelligence.<\/p>\n
\n\tBut an uptick is forecast for MS NOW in 2026, when the network will gear up for a long run to pivotal national midterm elections. There are already signs viewers have new interest. On Election Night, with Democrats winning pivotal seats in an off-year election cycle. MSNBC\u2019s coverage drew an audience nearly on par with that of Fox News Channel, which typically dominates the cable-news audience.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe newly convened newsgathering staff aims to get inside the Beltway and out, with Sudeep Reddy, the network\u2019s new Washington Bureau chief, organizing teams devoted to the White House, Congress, national security, legal affairs and more. Meanwhile, other parts of the team want to dig in to scenes across the nation to demonstrate the effects of national policy. During the government shutdown, some reporters were sent to talk to people on line at food pantries, \u00a0showing what the end of SNAP benefits meant to citizens who depend on them \u00a0\u201cWe are taking all of these things that are being decided in Washington, and we\u2019re showing the real world impact,\u201d says Erin Zimmerman, vice president of newsgathering \u201dAnd it\u2019s not just our linear viewer, but it\u2019s our digital viewers. We\u2019re doing a lot of digital packages, a lot of TikTok\u2019s, trying to cover the whole realm.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThey are doing it all without much time for idle thought. The bulk of the team has been assembled over the last several months, with many coming over from NBC News. And while MS-Old and MS-New are naturally driven by the news cycle, more headlines in days to come will be generated by a team that continues to coalesce. No pressure, folks!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The cable outlet known until Saturday morning as MSNBC has long been known for newsy hot takes. Now it\u2019s putting some emphasis on reporters\u2019 news breaks. Yes, that was MSNBC in September touting a dispatch from reporters Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian, who found the FBI in 2024 allegedly recorded current White House border czar<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[1620,3428,4802,150,440,18506],"class_list":{"0":"post-33765","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-brings","9":"tag-harder","10":"tag-mix","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-opinion","13":"tag-trickier"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}