Melissa Harris-Perry walks away from her own MSNBC show complaining of network meddling
"Here is the reality: Our show was taken - without comment or discussion or notice - in the midst of an election season," she said in the email, which was obtained by the New York Times. "After four years of building an audience, developing a brand, and developing trust with our viewers, we were effectively and utterly silenced."
Harris-Perry said her program had been preempted for two weeks and substituted with coverage of the election. She also said that during her show on Super Bowl Sunday, she was told to talk about the election. The host typically uses the show to address social justice, diversity, and racism. She also felt sidelined by the network during election coverage in South Carolina and New Hampshire.
Asked to return to the show this weekend, Harris-Perry confirmed to the newspaper that she won't show up. She also blamed NBC News chairman Andrew Lack and MSNBC president Phil Griffin for the mistreatment of her show, which airs from 10 a.m. to noon on Saturdays and Sundays.
Typically the third-place news network after Fox News and CNN, MSNBC's election news has helped to raise ratings. Harris-Perry says her show's on-screen branding has been replaced by the network's new slogan, "The Place for Politics." And she says that she had been told that the pre-emptions and focus on politics would be the way things go for the "foreseeable future."
"It is perfectly fine, 100% reasonable, and perfectly acceptable for MSNBC to decide they no longer want the M.H.P. show," she said. "But they should say that, they should cancel the show, they should stand up. And maybe it would be rewarded with huge ratings, but they shouldn't kill us by attrition and take us off the air without telling anybody, including us. That for me is what's painful and difficult."
An MSNBC representative told the Times via a statement, "In this exciting and unpredictable presidential primary season, many of our daytime programs have been temporarily upended by breaking political coverage, including M.H.P. This reaction is really surprising, confusing, and disappointing."
Read Harris-Perry's full message to her coworkers aka "Nerdland," obtained by Medium.com, below: