MSNBC Host Won't Appear on Own Show

Melissa Harris-Perry walks off after blistering email
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Feb 27, 2016 8:20 AM CST
MSNBC Host Won't Appear on Own Show
Melissa Harris-Perry presents an award during a taping of the Black Girls Rock award ceremony at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in 2015.   (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

The Melissa Harris-Perry show is on the schedule to air Saturday and Sunday morning as usual on MSNBC, but it will do so without the host whose name accounts for the show's title. Harris-Perry has walked off the program amid a spat with her bosses at the network and at NBC, reports the New York Times. Harris-Perry is upset that her show has been repeatedly pre-empted for political coverage, complaining that she feels "worthless" and "utterly silenced" in an email to staff. But it's this line referring to MSNBC chief Phil Griffin and NBC news chief Andrew Lack that is drawing the most attention:

  • “I will not be used as a tool for their purposes I am not a token, mammy, or little brown bobble head. I am not owned by Lack, Griffin or MSNBC. I love our show. I want it back.”
An NBC spokesman says the pre-emptions are business as usual in an election year and describes the Harris-Perry email as "really surprising, confusing, and disappointing." A columnist at Mediaite is similarly bewildered, predicting that the 42-year-old political science professor at Wake Forest has just thrown away a promising TV career. A fan at Jezebel hopes she's back but notes that Harris-Perry has deleted the show, which she has hosted since 2012, from her Twitter bio. Read her email in full at Medium. (More MSNBC stories.)

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