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Joy Reid

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

(1968-12-08) December 8, 1968 (age 55)
New York City, U.S.
EducationHarvard University (BA)
Occupations
  • television host
  • political commentator
  • author
Notable credits
Political partyDemocratic[1]
Spouse
Jason Reid
​
(m. 1997)​
[2]
Children3

Joy-Ann M. Lomena-Reid (née Lomena; born December 8, 1968) is an American progressive political commentator and television host.[3] She is a national correspondent for MSNBC and is best known for hosting the political commentary program The ReidOut since July 2020. Her previous anchoring credits include The Reid Report (2014–2015) and AM Joy (2016–2020).[4]

The New York Times described Reid as a "heroine" emerging from the political movements and protests against Donald Trump.[5] She has written three books: Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide (2016),[6][7] The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story (2019),[8] and Medgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America (2024).

Early life

Reid was born Joy-Ann Lomena in Brooklyn, New York City.[9] Her father was from the Democratic Republic of the Congo,[5] and her mother a college professor and nutritionist from Guyana.[5] Her parents met in graduate school at the University of Iowa in Iowa City.[9] Reid was raised Methodist and has one sister and one brother.[9] Her father was an engineer who was mostly absent from the family; her parents eventually divorced and her father returned to the Congo.[9] She was raised mostly in Denver, Colorado, until the age of 17, when her mother died of breast cancer[5] and she moved to Flatbush, Brooklyn, to live with an aunt.[9] Reid graduated from Harvard University in 1991 with a concentration in film studies.[10][11]

In a 2013 interview, Reid recalled that her college experience was a quick immersion into a demographically opposite place from where she lived, from a community that was eighty 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.[12]

Career

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MSNBC Host Joy Reid on set during coverage of the 2016 Presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at Hofstra University in Hempstead, NY on September 26, 2016

Reid began her journalism career in 1997, leaving New York and her job at a business consulting firm to begin working in South Florida for a WSVN Channel 7 morning show.[13] She left journalism in 2003 to work with the group America Coming Together to oppose the Iraq War and President George W. Bush. She later returned to broadcasting as a talk radio host and worked on Barack Obama's 2008 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.[5] She served as managing editor of The Grio[14] (2011–2014), a political columnist for Miami Herald (2003–2015), and the editor of The Reid Report political blog (2000–2014).[15]

From February 2014 to February 2015, Reid hosted her own MSNBC afternoon cable news show, The Reid Report.[16] The show was canceled[17] on February 19, 2015, and Reid was shifted to a new role as an MSNBC national correspondent.[18] Beginning in May 2016, Reid hosted AM Joy, a political weekend-morning talk show on MSNBC, and was a frequent substitute for other MSNBC hosts, including Chris Hayes and Rachel Maddow. As of 2018, Reid's morning show on Saturdays averaged nearly one million weekly viewers.[5] In July 2020, MSNBC announced that Reid would host The ReidOut, a new Washington-based weeknight commentary show in the 7 p.m. Eastern time slot vacated by the March 2020 retirement of Hardball host Chris Matthews,[4] making her cable's first Black female primetime anchor.[19][20][21]

In 2017, Reid ranked fourth among Twitter's top tweeted news outlets and most tweeted journalist at each outlet.[22] The Daily Dot credited her in August of that year with coining the term KHive for supporters of Kamala Harris.[23]

Reid also teaches a Syracuse University class in Manhattan exploring race, gender, and the media.[5]

Reception and honors

In 2015, Reid gave the inaugural Ida B. Wells lecture at Wake Forest University's Anna Julia Cooper Center.[14] In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter said she had the "ability to break down complex issues in a way that makes them digestible and accessible."[24] In 2018, The New York Times stated that "Ms. Reid, the daughter of immigrants, has emerged as a 'heroine' of the anti-Trump 'resistance'."[5]

Reid was a 2003 Knight Center for Specialized Journalism fellow.[25] In 2018, Reid was nominated for three NABJ Salute to Excellence Awards. One for her segment where a pastor is pulled to safety at the Charlottesville white nationalist march, for Reid's reporting on the damage caused by the hurricanes to the US 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.[citation needed] In 2016, she received the Women's Media Center's Carol Jenkins Visible and Powerful Media Award.[26]

Controversies

Deleted blog controversies

In late 2017,[27] and again in April 2018, Twitter user @Jamie_maz[28] 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."[29] Following criticism, Reid apologized, calling the posts "insensitive, tone-deaf and dumb."[30] 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."[31] Reid claimed she did not remember making those posts, and asked lawyers to investigate if her blog or its archives might have been hacked,[28] though the Wayback Machine, where the posts had been found, said it detected no evidence of hacking in the archived versions of her site.[28] The second batch of posts prompted LGBT advocacy group PFLAG to rescind its plan to give Reid an award,[32] and The Daily Beast to suspend future columns from her.[33][34] An analysis published by The Daily Beast thoroughly disputed her claims of being a victim of hacking.[34] Reid opened the April 28, 2018, edition of AM Joy with an apology.[35] Responses to her apology tended to be divided along party lines.[36]

In April 2018, further blog posts from 2005 through 2007 were brought to public attention. According to The Washington Post, Reid's controversial remarks included encouraging her readers to watch the "truther" conspiracy-theory film Loose Change and saying of Israel "God is not a real estate broker. He can't just give you land 1,000 years ago that you can come back and claim today."[37][38] Reid claimed Jewish people spend half a million dollars on their bar and bat mitzvah celebrations.[39] She also described CNN's Wolf Blitzer, who is Jewish, as a "former flak for the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee [sic]" who "doesn't even try to hide his affinity for his Israeli guests, or his partisanship for their cause".[40] The Zionist Organization of America called for MSNBC to fire Reid for promoting "sinister anti-Semitic canards".[41] Another controversial post, from 2007, contained a photoshopped image of Senator John McCain's face superimposed on the body of Seung-Hui Cho, who perpetrated the Virginia Tech shooting.[42]

In June 2018, Reid formally apologized for her past writings, saying, "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."[43] 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"[43] 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."[37]

Other controversies

On the September 1, 2020 episode of The ReidOut, Reid criticized President Donald Trump's unwillingness to condemn Kyle Rittenhouse. She held that this amounted to what US media would usually describe as "radicalizing people" in the case of "leaders, let's say in the Muslim world, talk a lot of violent talk and encourage their supporters to be willing to commit violence including on their own bodies in order to win against whoever they decide is the enemy".[44] The Southern Poverty Law Center and Muslim Advocates, both civil rights organizations, and representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib criticized Reid's remarks as Islamophobic and called for an apology.[44] Conversely, commentator Jennifer Rubin defended Reid, arguing she had merely highlighted a double standard in the media without endorsing it.[44]

Personal life

In 1997, Reid married Jason Reid, who later became a documentary film editor.[2] The couple have three children.[9]

Works

  • Reid, Joy-Ann (February 6, 2024). Medgar and Myrlie. Mariner Books. ISBN 978-0-06-306879-7.[45][46][47][48][49]
  • Reid, Joy-Ann (June 25, 2019). The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story. Mariner Books. ISBN 978-0062880109

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Hill, Jarrett (November 4, 2016). "MSNBC's Joy Reid on Election Day Predictions, Donald Trump's Scar on the GOP". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on September 25, 2018. Retrieved December 13, 2017.
  2. ^ a b Pappu, Sridhar (July 20, 2020). "MSNBC's Joy Reid on Her Groundbreaking Move to Prime Time: 'I Feel the Burden to Do It Right'". Vogue. Archived from the original on January 19, 2021. Retrieved February 15, 2021.
  3. ^ "Joy Reid on Media, Politics, and 2020". Brown University. Archived from the original on June 4, 2020. Retrieved June 3, 2020.
  4. ^ a b "MSNBC Appoints Joy Reid as Chris Matthews' Replacement". Associated Press. July 9, 2020. Archived from the original on July 9, 2020. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h Holson, Laura (February 10, 2018). "How Joy Reid of MSNBC Became a Heroine of the Resistance". The New York Times. Archived from the original on February 10, 2018. Retrieved February 10, 2018.
  6. ^ Reid, Joy-Ann Lomena (2015). Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the racial divide (1st ed.). New York, NY: Mariner Books. ISBN 978-0-06-230525-1.
  7. ^ "Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide". Kirkus Reviews. July 15, 2015. Retrieved July 25, 2017.
  8. ^ Reid, Joy-Ann Lomena (2019). The man who sold America: Trump and the unraveling of the American story (1st ed.). New York, NY: William Morrow, An Imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. ISBN 978-0-06-288010-9.
  9. ^ a b c d e f Grove, Lloyd (March 27, 2014). "Joy Reid, MSNBC Anchor, on the Racism of the Tea Party, Family Dramas, and Why She Loves Boxing". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved September 9, 2015.
  10. ^ "DACA Seminar". harvard.edu. Harvard University. Archived from the original on May 4, 2018. Retrieved April 26, 2018.
  11. ^ Dept. of Art, Film, and Visual Studies, Harvard. [1]
  12. ^ Witt, Alex (May 25, 2013). "Joy-Ann Reid Reflects on College Years at Harvard". MSNBC. Archived from the original on July 7, 2018. Retrieved May 31, 2018.
  13. ^ Balzano, Cata (May 17, 2016). "Journalist Joy Reid Honored by Miami Coalition of Christians and Jews". Miami Herald. Archived from the original on January 8, 2017. Retrieved January 7, 2017.
  14. ^ a b Stinson, Tevin (October 2, 2015). "Journalist Joy-Ann Reid Delivers First Wells Lecture". Winston-Salem Chronicle. Archived from the original on September 27, 2021. Retrieved January 7, 2017.
  15. ^ 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. Archived from the original on February 12, 2020. Retrieved February 10, 2018.
  16. ^ Alexis Garrett Stodghill (January 27, 2014). "Joy-Ann Reid to Host New Show on MSNBC". The Grio. Archived from the original on March 4, 2014. Retrieved February 24, 2014.
  17. ^ Connor, Jackson (February 19, 2015). "MSNBC Cancels 'The Reid Report,' 'Ronan Farrow Daily'". The Huffington Post. Archived from the original on September 10, 2017. Retrieved August 4, 2017.
  18. ^ "MSNBC Shifts Ronan Farrow, Joy-Ann Reid; Thomas Roberts Returns to Dayside". Adweek. February 19, 2015. Archived from the original on August 4, 2017. Retrieved August 4, 2017.
  19. ^ Flint, Joe (June 24, 2020). "MSNBC Expected to Tap Joy Reid to Anchor Daily News and Opinion Program". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Archived from the original on June 27, 2020. Retrieved January 28, 2021.
  20. ^ Daniels, Karu F. (June 25, 2020). "MSNBC anchor Joy Ann Reid reportedly set to take over Chris Matthews' former 'Hardball' time slot". nydailynews.com. Retrieved January 28, 2021.
  21. ^ Barr, Jeremy (July 9, 2020). "Joy Reid named new MSNBC host for 7 p.m. hour". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on December 29, 2022. Retrieved December 15, 2022.
  22. ^ Warren, James (December 5, 2017). "Twitter Reveals the Kings and Queens of Newsroom Tweets". Poynter Institute. Archived from the original on December 5, 2017. Retrieved December 5, 2017.
  23. ^ "What Is the K-Hive, Kamala Harris' Online Twitter Support?". The Daily Dot. August 12, 2020. Archived from the original on October 5, 2020. Retrieved August 16, 2020.
  24. ^ Hill, Jarrett (November 4, 2016). "MSNBC's Joy Reid on Election Day Predictions, Donald Trump's Scar on the GOP". The Hollywood Reporter. Archived from the original on September 25, 2018. Retrieved March 4, 2020.
  25. ^ "Caribbean Institute Inducts Guyanese/American Television Host into 'Wall of Fame'". Jamaican Observer. June 10, 2018.
  26. ^ "Women's Media Center Announces Sally Field as the 2016 Host at the Women's Media Awards". Archived from the original on October 9, 2016. Retrieved August 4, 2017.
  27. ^ Ahmed, Tufayel (December 4, 2017). "MSNBC's Joy Reid Apologizes for Decade-old Homophobic Blog Posts About Charlie Crist". Newsweek. Retrieved April 30, 2018.
  28. ^ a b c Guthrie Weissman, Cale (April 24, 2018). "The Internet Archive Rejects MSNBC Host Joy Reid's Claim That Her Old Blog Was Hacked". Fast Company. Archived from the original on June 12, 2018. 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.
  29. ^ Kim, Richard (April 27, 2018). "The Very Specific 2006-ishness of Those Alleged Joy Reid Posts". The Nation. Archived from the original on May 1, 2018. 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.
  30. ^ Nyren, Erin (December 3, 2017). "Joy Reid Apologizes for Old Homophobic Blog Posts: They Were 'Insensitive, Tone Deaf and Dumb'". Variety. Archived from the original on December 8, 2017. Retrieved December 13, 2017. 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.
  31. ^ "The Joy Reid Controversy, from Homophobic Blog Posts to a Hacking Claim, Explained". Vox. April 28, 2018. Archived from the original on November 21, 2019. Retrieved November 21, 2019.
  32. ^ "LGBT Advocacy Group Rescinds Award to Joy Reid". CBS News. April 27, 2018. Archived from the original on May 1, 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.
  33. ^ Levine, Jon (April 26, 2018). "Daily Beast Suspends Joy Reid Column over 'Serious' Accusations About Past Homophobic Blog Posts". TheWrap. Archived from the original on May 1, 2018. Retrieved May 2, 2018.
  34. ^ a b Poulsen, Kevin (April 26, 2018). "Claims by Joy Reid's Cybersecurity Expert Fall Apart". The Daily Beast. Retrieved June 13, 2021.
  35. ^ Hayes, Christal (April 28, 2018). "Joy Reid: 'I Genuinely Do Not Believe I Wrote Those Hateful Things'". USA Today. Archived from the original on April 29, 2018. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  36. ^ Wang, Amy B (April 28, 2018). "Joy Reid Apologizes for Anti-LGBT Posts, Says She Can't Prove Her Blog Was Hacked". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on May 1, 2018. 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.
  37. ^ a b Farhi, Paul (June 1, 2018). "MSNBC Stands by Joy Reid After New Apology for Controversial Blog Posts". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on June 10, 2018. 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.'
  38. ^ Reid, Joy (December 8, 2005). "Iran's pres strikes again, Says "move Israel to Europe"". Reidblog [The Reid Report blog]. Archived from the original on January 22, 2013. Retrieved January 11, 2023.
  39. ^ "MSNBC Host Joy Reid Criticized Jews, Ariel Sharon in Old Blog Posts". The Times of Israel. June 9, 2018. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved August 11, 2020.
  40. ^ "Joy Reid Blog Post Attacked Wolf Blitzer for Being Too Soft on Jews". National Review. June 1, 2018. Archived from the original on August 13, 2020. Retrieved August 11, 2020.
  41. ^ "ZOA: MSNBC Should Fire Joy Reid for Perpetuating 'Sinister Anti-Semitic Canards'". Jewish Journal. June 11, 2018. Archived from the original on February 18, 2021. Retrieved August 11, 2020.
  42. ^ 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."
  43. ^ a b Victor, Daniel (June 1, 2018). "Joy Reid, MSNBC Host, Apologizes Again as More Incendiary Blog Posts Surface". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 11, 2019. Retrieved December 31, 2018.
  44. ^ a b c "Calls for Apology Grow over Joy Reid's 'Islamophobic' Remarks". Al Jazeera. September 2, 2020. Archived from the original on September 9, 2020. Retrieved September 13, 2020.
  45. ^ "Joy Reid details life and love of slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers in new book". MSNBC.com. Retrieved March 3, 2024.
  46. ^ Obeidallah, Dean (February 13, 2024). ""There are two Americas": Joy-Ann Reid on the legacy of civil rights icons Medgar and Myrlie Evers". Salon. Archived from the original on March 3, 2024. Retrieved March 3, 2024.
  47. ^ Wong, Wilson (February 22, 2024). "Joy-Ann Reid's 352-Page Love Letter to Medgar and Myrlie". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved March 3, 2024.
  48. ^ "WTOP Book Report: MSNBC's Joy Reid tells WTOP the love story of Civil Rights leaders 'Medgar & Myrlie'". WTOP News. February 25, 2024. Archived from the original on March 3, 2024. Retrieved March 3, 2024.
  49. ^ "Joy Reid's 'Medgar and Myrlie' traces extraordinary lives and love of civil rights leaders". PBS NewsHour. February 6, 2024. Archived from the original on March 3, 2024. Retrieved March 3, 2024.
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