Rashida Jones replaces Phil Griffin as MSNBC president
NEW YORK – Phil Griffin is stepping down as the longtime president of MSNBC, to be replaced early next year by rising NBC News executive Rashida Jones. Griffin, 64, has worked at NBC News for 35 years and has been president of MSNBC since 2008. Jones, who has been with NBC News for the past seven years, is currently chief of breaking news and major events at the network. She just led the network's coverage of the 2020 presidential election and the team preparing Kristen Welker as moderator of the third presidential debate. Cesar Conde, the new chairman of the NBC Universal News Group, has made diversity one of his top priorities.
TV gives viewers a split-screen comparison of Trump, Biden
President Donald Trump wipes his face during a break in an NBC News Town Hall, at Perez Art Museum Miami, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020, in Miami. NBC News chief executive Cesar Conde said Thursday that NBC scheduled Trump out of fairness after Biden did a town hall at the same time last Thursday. There were apparently still hard feelings, given that Muir twice mentioned a nameless “another network” holding a Trump town hall. “Has there ever been two more different presidential candidates than Trump or Biden?” asked The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler in a tweet. At a rally in North Carolina on Thursday, Trump called NBC “the worst" and said he was being set up with the town hall.
NBC News sets goal of a workforce that is half mnority
NEW YORK NBC News leader Cesar Conde, in one of his first public acts in the job, has committed to building a workforce at the news organizations he supervises where at least half of the employees are minorities. Conde set no deadline for achieving his 50 Percent Initiative.He also wants women to comprise half the employees at NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC, and he's already nearly there. The plan, first reported by the Los Angeles Times, makes Conde a leader in the current movement to diversify the news business. Given where NBC currently stands, particularly with Black employees, Truong said she understands why the initiative has no deadline and is glad that progress will be checked regularly. What I would like to hear is whether other people at NBC are committed to this moving forward, she said.
NBCUniversal reorganizes leadership team, chairman of news to step down
NBCUniversal announced Monday it restructured its executive team, just months after new CEO Jeff Shell took over. Among the notable changes: NBC News Group Chairman Andy Lack will step down and leave the company by the end of May amid the restructuring. The company's news networks, including NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC, will be condensed into a single unit under Cesar Conde, now chairman of NBCUniversal News Group. The move also puts NBCUniversal's television networks and its new streaming service, Peacock, under Mark Lazarus, now chairman of television and streaming. Correction: Andy Lack most recently served as Chairman of NBC News and MSNBC.
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