TVNewser’s Chris Ariens writes about changes to MSNBC and how some of NBC News’ staff is being redeployed…
Hallie Jackson, who covered Donald Trump’s campaign for NBC News, has been named White House correspondent for the network. Meanwhile, MSNBC correspondent Kasie Hunt has been named Capitol Hill correspondent. Katy Tur, who had covered Trump’s campaign from day one, will remain in New York and will anchor MSNBC’s 2 p.m. ET hour during Trump’s first 100 days.
Left out of this was the fact that Jackson will continue to anchor MSNBC at 10am, which she confirmed via Twitter.
I was actually surprised by this news. I expected Tur to get the White House gig but maybe she didn’t want it after all the crap she had to deal with covering Trump during the election. Jackson getting the gig AND keeping 10am is both noteworthy and not novel. It’s noteworthy because it puts her on the “NBC grooming train” for a bigger role at some point down the line. It isn’t novel because both Chuck Todd and Savannah Guthrie had similar roles for a couple of years. One difference however is that Todd and Guthrie had the 9am slot and not the 10 which one would think is the better slot to have from a logistical standpoint if you’re going to have both roles but evidently NBC thinks it can still work with one hour less separating the two duties.
It’s also interesting that MSNBC would not fully commit to Tur full time. The press release says it’s for at least the first 100 days and maybe that’s just bet hedging and she will probably stay on. But from an optics standpoint it’s not much of an endorsement.
Filed under: MSNBC
