Joy Reid

Joy-Ann M. Lomena-Reid (born 1968), known professionally as Joy Reid, is an American cable television host, MSNBC national correspondent, and political commentator.[2] In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter described her as one of the political pundits "who have been at the forefront of the cable-news conversations this election season."[1] That same year, she wrote a book on the recent history of the Democratic Party, called Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide.[3] She hosts the weekly MSNBC morning show AM Joy, and in 2019 published the book, The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story.[4] On July 9, 2020, MSNBC announced that Reid would host The ReidOut, a new Washington-based weeknight show in the 7 p.m. Eastern time slot vacated in March by Hardball host Chris Matthews' retirement.[5]

Joy Reid
Reid at Politicon in 2018
Born
Joy-Ann M. Lomena

1968 (age 51–52)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Alma materHarvard University (BA)
OccupationJournalist, political commentator
Television
Political partyDemocratic[1]
Spouse(s)
Jason Reid
(
m. 1997)
Children3

Early life

Reid was born Joy-Ann Lomena in Brooklyn, New York.[6] Her father was from the Democratic Republic of Congo,[7] and her mother a college professor and nutritionist from Guyana;[7] the two met in graduate school at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.[6] Reid was raised Methodist and has one sister and one brother.[6] Her father was an engineer who was mostly absent from the family; her parents eventually divorced and her father returned to the Congo .[6] She was raised mostly in Denver, Colorado, until the age of 17, when her mother died of breast cancer[7] and she moved to Flatbush, Brooklyn, to live with an aunt.[6] Reid graduated from Harvard University in 1991 with a concentration in film.[8]

In a 2013 interview on MSNBC, Reid recalled that her college experience was a quick immersion into a demographically opposite place from where she lived, from a community that was 80 percent African-American to a community that was six percent African-American. She had to learn to live with roommates and people who were not her family. She paid her own bills and tuition while at Harvard, and said it was a good learning and growing experience overall.[9]

Career

Reid began her journalism career in 1997, leaving New York and her job at a business consulting firm to begin working in southern Florida for a WSVN Channel 7 morning show.[10] She left journalism in 2003 to oppose the war in Iraq and President George W. Bush, but returned to broadcasting as a talk radio host, and then worked in the Barack Obama presidential campaign.[1]

From 2006 to 2007, Reid was the co-host of Wake Up South Florida, a morning radio talk show broadcast from Radio One's then-Miami affiliate WTPS, alongside "James T" Thomas.[7] She served as managing editor of The Grio[11] (2011–2014), a political columnist for Miami Herald (2003–2015), and the editor of The Reid Report political blog (2000–2014).[12]

From February 2014 to February 2015, Reid hosted her own MSNBC afternoon cable news show, The Reid Report.[13] The show was canceled[14] on February 19, 2015 and Reid was shifted to a new role[15] as an MSNBC national correspondent.[16]

Since May 2016, Reid has hosted AM Joy, a political weekend-morning talk show on MSNBC, and is a frequent substitute for other MSNBC hosts, including Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow. As of 2018, Reid's morning show on Saturday averages nearly 1 million weekly viewers.[7]

Reid is the author of the book Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide, published by HarperCollins on September 8, 2015.[17][18]

In 2015, Reid gave the inaugural Ida B. Wells lecture at Wake Forest University's Anna Julia Cooper Center.[11]

In 2017, Reid ranked fourth among Twitter's top tweeted news outlets (@MSNBC) and most tweeted journalist (@JoyAnnReid) at each outlet.[19]

In June 2020, it was announced that Reid would likely be taking over Hardball with Chris Matthews, making her cable's first black female primetime anchor.[20][21]

Reid also teaches a Syracuse University class in Manhattan exploring race, gender and the media.[7]

In July 2020, MSNBC announced that Reid would host The ReidOut, a new Washington-based weeknight show in the 7 p.m. Eastern time slot vacated in March by Hardball host Chris Matthews's retirement.[5]

Reception and honors

In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter said she had the "ability to break down complex issues in a way that makes them digestible and accessible."[22] In 2018, the New York Times stated that "Ms. Reid, the daughter of immigrants, has emerged as a "heroine" of the anti-Trump "resistance".[7]

Reid was a 2003 Knight Center for Specialized Journalism fellow.[23] In 2018, Reid was nominated for three NABJ Salute to Excellence Awards. One for her ground-breaking segment where a Pastor is pulled to safety at Charlottesville white nationalists march, for Reid's reporting on the damage caused by the hurricanes to the U.S. Virgin Islands and lastly for the segment that won her an award Tragedy of ‘Time: The Kalief Browder Story’ where Reid sat down with Kalief's brother Deion Browder and filmmaker Julia Mason.

In 2016, she received the Women's Media Center's Carol Jenkins Visible and Powerful Media Award.[24]

Controversy

In late 2017[25] and again in April 2018, a Twitter user @Jamie_maz[26] reproduced posts written between 2007 and 2009 on Reid's former blog "Reid Report" which, as The Nation described it, "us[ed] the trope of gay sex to mock politicians and journalists."[27] Following criticism, Reid apologized, calling the posts "insensitive, tone deaf and dumb."[28] A second batch of posts gained attention, which described kissing between men as disgusting to straight people, accused gay men of being "attracted to very young, post-pubescent types", and declared opposition to same-sex marriage. In one post, Reid wrote about her views: “Does that make me homophobic? Probably.”[29] Reid claimed she did not remember making those posts, and asked lawyers to investigate if her blog or its archives might have been hacked,[26] though Wayback Machine, where the posts had been found, said it detected no evidence of hacking in the archived versions of her site.[26] The second batch of posts prompted LGBT advocacy group PFLAG to rescind its plan to give Reid an award,[30] and The Daily Beast to suspend future columns from her.[31][32] An analysis published by that website thoroughly disputed her claims of being a victim of hacking.[32] Reid opened the April 28, 2018, edition of AM Joy with an apology.[33] Responses to her apology tended to be divided along party lines.[34]

In April 2018, blog posts from 2005 through 2007 were brought to public attention. According to the Washington Post, Reid encouraged her readers to watch the 9/11 film Loose Change and appeared to support Iranian hostility to Israel.[35] Reid claimed Jewish people spend half a million on their bar and bat mitzvah celebrations.[36] She also wrote that CNN’s Wolf Blitzer is a "former flak for the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)" and he "doesn’t even try to hide his affinity for his Israeli guests, or his partisanship for their cause".[37] The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) called for MSNBC to fire Reid for promoting "sinister anti-Semitic canards".[38]

Another controversial post, this one from 2007, used a photoshopped image of Senator John McCain superimposed on the body of 2007 Virginia Tech University gunman.[39] In June 2018, Reid formally apologized, saying she had evolved in the years since she wrote the posts: "I’m a better person today than I was over a decade ago. There are things I deeply regret and am embarrassed by, things I would have said differently and issues where my position has changed. Today I’m sincerely apologizing again."[40] MSNBC expressed its continued support, saying in a statement that some of the blog posts were "obviously hateful and hurtful", but that they were "not reflective of the colleague and friend we have known at MSNBC for the past seven years"[40] and that "Joy has apologized publicly and privately and said she has grown and evolved in the many years since, and we know this to be true."[35]

Personal life

Reid is married to Jason Reid, a documentary film editor for the Discovery Channel. They have three children together.[6]

References
  1. Hill, Jarrett (November 4, 2016). "MSNBC's Joy Reid on Election Day Predictions, Donald Trump's Scar on the GOP". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved December 13, 2017.
  2. "Joy Reid on Media, Politics, and 2020". Brown University. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
  3. Reid, Joy-Ann. "Fracture - Joy-Ann Reid - Hardcover". HarperCollins US. Retrieved June 13, 2017.
  4. On July 13, 2019 she was interviewed by author Sophia Nelson on the C-SPAN 2 Book TV After Words program.
  5. "MSNBC appoints Joy Reid as Chris Matthews' replacement". Associated Press. July 9, 2020. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
  6. Grove, Lloyd. "Joy Reid, MSNBC Anchor, on the Racism of the Tea Party, Family Dramas, and Why She Loves Boxing". The Daily Beast. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
  7. Holson, Laura (February 10, 2018). "How Joy Reid of MSNBC Became a Heroine of the Resistance". The New York Times. Retrieved February 10, 2018.
  8. "DACA Seminar". harvard.edu. Harvard University. Retrieved April 26, 2018.
  9. Witt, Alex (May 25, 2013). "Joy-AnnReid reflects on college years at Harvard". MSNBC. Retrieved May 31, 2018.
  10. Balzano, Cata (May 17, 2016). "Journalist Joy Reid honored by Miami Coalition of Christians and Jews". Miami Herald. Retrieved January 7, 2017.
  11. Stinson, Tevin (October 2, 2015). "Journalist Joy-Ann Reid delivers first Wells lecture". Winston-Salem Chronicle. Retrieved January 7, 2017.
  12. Nourse, Gionna (October 14, 2015). "MSNBC's Joy Reid to speak at Church Street Center tonight". The Beacon. Official student newspaper of Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. Retrieved February 10, 2018.
  13. Alexis Garrett Stodghill (January 27, 2014). "Joy-Ann Reid to host new show on MSNBC". The Grio.
  14. Connor, Jackson (February 19, 2015). "MSNBC Cancels 'The Reid Report,' 'Ronan Farrow Daily'". Huffington Post. Retrieved August 4, 2017.
  15. "MSNBC Shifts Ronan Farrow, Joy-Ann Reid; Thomas Roberts Returns to Dayside". www.adweek.com. Retrieved August 4, 2017.
  16. Ariens, Chris. "MSNBC Shifts Ronan Farrow, Joy-Ann Reid; Thomas Roberts Returns to Dayside". AdWeek. Retrieved February 19, 2015.
  17. "Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide". Kirkus Reviews. July 15, 2015. Retrieved July 25, 2017.
  18. Reid, Joy-Ann (2015). Fracture - Joy-Ann Reid - E-book. HarperCollins US. Retrieved July 16, 2017.
  19. Warren, James. "Twitter reveals the kings and queens of newsroom tweets". Poynter Institute. Retrieved December 5, 2017.
  20. https://www.wsj.com/articles/msnbc-expected-to-tap-joy-reid-to-anchor-daily-news-and-opinion-program-11593041370
  21. https://www.nydailynews.com/snyde/ny-msnbc-joy-reid-take-over-hardball-slot-20200625-mto3aobypvdxbkccuk7bsrtnii-story.html
  22. Hill, Jarrett (November 4, 2016). "MSNBC's Joy Reid on Election Day Predictions, Donald Trump's Scar on the GOP". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
  23. "Caribbean institute inducts Guyanese/American television host into 'Wall of Fame'". Jamaican Observer. June 10, 2018.
  24. "Women's Media Center Announces Sally Field as the 2016 Host at the Women's Media Awards". Retrieved August 4, 2017.
  25. Ahmed, Tufayel (December 4, 2017). "MSNBC's Joy Reid apologizes for decade-old homophobic blog posts about Charlie Crist". Newsweek. Retrieved April 30, 2018.
  26. Guthrie Weissman, Cale (April 24, 2018). "The Internet Archive rejects MSNBC host Joy Reid's claim that her old blog was hacked". Fast Company. Retrieved June 8, 2018. The Internet Archive says Reid’s lawyers contacted the organization back in December, claiming that “fraudulent” text had been “inserted into legitimate content,” and asking the organization to take those posts offline.
  27. Kim, Richard (April 27, 2018). "The Very Specific 2006-ishness of Those Alleged Joy Reid Posts". The Nation. Retrieved May 2, 2018. I don't know if Reid wrote the posts in question, but it wouldn't surprise me if she, or any liberal blogger at the time, had.
  28. Nyren, Erin (December 3, 2017). "Joy Reid Apologizes for Old Homophobic Blog Posts: They Were 'Insensitive, Tone Deaf and Dumb'". Variety. According to Mediaite, the statements, which were posted between 2007 and 2009—The Reid Report has been shut down for several years—speculate on the sexuality of then-Florida governor Charlie Crist, who Reid refers to as "Miss Charlie" several times throughout. The posts mock him for supposedly being a closeted gay man, including the conspiracy theory that Crist married his then-wife Carole Rome in order to further his chances of becoming John McCain's running mate. Crist, at the time a conservative politician, was well-known for holding policy views against same-sex marriage, though he has since switched stances and political parties.
  29. "The Joy Reid controversy, from homophobic blog posts to a hacking claim, explained". Vox. April 28, 2018.
  30. "LGBT advocacy group rescinds award to Joy Reid". CBS News. April 27, 2018. Retrieved May 2, 2018. When we extended our invitation to Ms. Reid to honor her at our 45th anniversary celebration, we did so knowing about the blog posts from the late 2000s regarding Charlie Crist. We appreciated how she stepped up, took ownership, apologized for them, and did better—this is the behavior and approach we ask of any ally. However, in light of new information, and the ongoing investigation of that information, we must at this time rescind our award to Ms. Reid.
  31. Levine, Jon (April 26, 2018). "Daily Beast Suspends Joy Reid Column Over 'Serious' Accusations About Past Homophobic Blog Posts". thewrap.com. TheWrap. Retrieved May 2, 2018.
  32. Kevin Poulsen (April 26, 2018). "Claims by Joy Reid’s Cybersecurity Expert Fall Apart". The Daily Beast
  33. Hayes, Christal (April 28, 2018). "Joy Reid: 'I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things'". usatoday.com. USA Today. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  34. Wang, Amy B (April 28, 2018). "Joy Reid apologizes for anti-LGBT posts, says she can't prove her blog was hacked". Washington Post. Retrieved May 2, 2018. Reid’s apology received mixed reactions, split largely along party lines. The MSNBC host was widely panned by those on the right, who found her hacking claims flimsy and her apology halfhearted…Others, including Reid’s colleagues at NBC as well as members of the LGBT community who appeared on her show after her open, praised Reid for taking responsibility for her actions and for vowing to do better.
  35. Farhi, Paul (June 1, 2018). "MSNBC stands by Joy Reid after new apology for controversial blog posts". Washington Post. Retrieved June 10, 2018. After two days of internal deliberations, the network’s executives chose to side with Reid. “Some of the things written by Joy on her old blog are obviously hateful and hurtful,” MSNBC said in a statement. “They are not reflective of the colleague and friend we have known at MSNBC for the past seven years. Joy has apologized publicly and privately and said she has grown and evolved in the many years since, and we know this to be true.”
  36. "MSNBC host Joy Reid criticized Jews, Ariel Sharon in old blog posts". The Times of Israel. June 9, 2018.
  37. "Joy Reid Blog Post Attacked Wolf Blitzer for Being Too Soft on Jews". National Review. June 1, 2018.
  38. "ZOA: MSNBC Should Fire Joy Reid for Perpetuating 'Sinister Anti-Semitic Canards'". Jewish Journal. June 11, 2018.
  39. Concha, Joe (May 31, 2018). "Joy Reid's old blog showed photoshopped McCain as Virginia Tech shooter". The Hill. Retrieved June 10, 2018. The post includes a caption with an actual quote from McCain declaring that he would follow al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was still in hiding at the time, "to the gates of hell to capture him."
  40. Victor, Daniel (June 1, 2018). "Joy Reid, MSNBC Host, Apologizes Again as More Incendiary Blog Posts Surface". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 31, 2018.
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