Joy Reid | |
|---|---|
 Reid in 2018 | |
| Born | Joy-Ann M. Lomena (1968-12-08)December 8, 1968 (age 56) New York City, U.S. |
| Education | Harvard University (BA) |
| Occupations |
|
| Notable credits |
|
| Political party | Democratic[1] |
| Spouse | [2] |
| Children | 3 |
Joy-Ann M. Lomena-Reid (néeLomena; born December 8, 1968) is an American political commentator and television host.[3][4] She was a national correspondent forMSNBC[5] and is best known for hosting the political commentary programThe ReidOut from 2020 to 2025. Her previous anchoring credits includeThe Reid Report (2014–2015) andAM Joy (2016–2020).[6]
The New York Times described Reid as a "heroine" emerging from thepolitical movements and protests againstDonald Trump.[7] She has written three books:Fracture: Barack Obama, the Clintons, and the Racial Divide (2016),[8][9]The Man Who Sold America: Trump and the Unraveling of the American Story (2019),[10] andMedgar and Myrlie: Medgar Evers and the Love Story That Awakened America (2024).
Reid was born Joy-Ann Lomena inBrooklyn,New York City.[11] Her father was from theDemocratic Republic of the Congo,[7] and her mother a college professor and nutritionist fromGuyana.[7] Her parents met in graduate school at theUniversity of Iowa inIowa City.[11] Reid was raisedMethodist and has one sister and one brother.[11] Her father was an engineer who was mostly absent from the family; her parents eventually divorced and her father returned to the Congo.[11] She was raised mostly inDenver,Colorado, until the age of 17, when her mother died ofbreast cancer[7] and she moved toFlatbush, Brooklyn, to live with an aunt.[11] Reid graduated fromHarvard University in 1991 with a concentration infilm studies.[12][13]
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.[14]
![[icon]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aWiki_letter_w_cropped.svg) |
Reid began her journalism career in 1997, leaving New York and her job at a business consulting firm to begin working inSouth Florida for aWSVN Channel 7 morning show.[15] She left journalism in 2003 to work with the groupAmerica Coming Together tooppose the Iraq War and PresidentGeorge W. Bush. She later returned to broadcasting as a talk radio host and worked onBarack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign.[1]
From 2006 to 2007, Reid was the co-host ofWake Up South Florida, a morning radio talk show broadcast fromRadio One's then-Miami affiliate WTPS, alongside "James T" Thomas.[7] She served as managing editor ofThe Grio[16] (2011–2014), a political columnist forMiami Herald (2003–2015), and the editor ofThe Reid Report political blog (2000–2014).[17]
From February 2014 to February 2015, Reid hosted her ownMSNBC afternoon cable news show,The Reid Report.[18] The show was canceled[19] on February 19, 2015, and Reid was shifted to a new role as an MSNBC national correspondent.[20] Beginning in May 2016, Reid hostedAM Joy, a political weekend-morning talk show on MSNBC, and was a frequent substitute for other MSNBC hosts, includingChris Hayes andRachel Maddow. As of 2018, Reid's morning show on Saturdays averaged nearly one million weekly viewers.[7]
In 2017, Reid ranked fourth among Twitter's top tweeted news outlets and most tweeted journalist at each outlet.[21]The Daily Dot credited her in August of that year with coining the termKHive for supporters ofKamala Harris.[22]
In July 2020, MSNBC announced that Reid would hostThe ReidOut, a new Washington-based weeknight commentary show in the 7 p.m. Eastern time slot vacated by the March 2020 retirement ofHardball host Chris Matthews,[6] making her cable's first Black female primetime anchor.[23][24][25] On February 23, 2025,The New York Times reported that MSNBC had canceledThe ReidOut, with plans to air its final episode during the week of February 24-28.[26][27] The final broadcast ofThe ReidOut would air on February 24, 2025.[28][29]
Reid also teaches aSyracuse University class inManhattan exploring race, gender, and the media.[7]
In 2015, Reid gave the inauguralIda B. Wells lecture atWake Forest University'sAnna Julia Cooper Center.[16] In 2016,The Hollywood Reporter said she had the "ability to break down complex issues in a way that makes them digestible and accessible."[30] In 2018,The New York Times stated that "Ms. Reid, the daughter of immigrants, has emerged as a 'heroine' of theanti-Trump 'resistance'."[7]
Reid was a 2003Knight Center for Specialized Journalism fellow.[31] In 2018, Reid was nominated for three NABJ Salute to Excellence Awards. One for her segment where a pastor is pulled to safety at theCharlottesville white nationalist march, for Reid's reporting on the damage caused by the hurricanes to theUS 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 theWomen's Media Center's Carol Jenkins Visible and Powerful Media Award.[32]
In late 2017,[33] and again in April 2018, Twitter user @Jamie_maz[34] reproduced posts written between 2007 and 2009 on Reid's former blogReid Report which, asThe Nation described it, "us[ed] the trope of gay sex to mock politicians and journalists."[35] Following criticism, Reid apologized, calling the posts "insensitive, tone-deaf and dumb."[36] 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 tosame-sex marriage. In one post, Reid wrote about her views: "Does that make me homophobic? Probably."[37] Reid claimed she did not remember making those posts, and asked lawyers to investigate if her blog or its archives might have been hacked,[34] though theWayback Machine, where the posts had been found, said it detected no evidence of hacking in the archived versions of her site.[34] The second batch of posts promptedLGBT advocacy groupPFLAG to rescind its plan to give Reid an award,[38] andThe Daily Beast to suspend future columns from her.[39][40] An analysis published byThe Daily Beast thoroughly disputed her claims of being a victim of hacking.[40] Reid opened the April 28, 2018, edition ofAM Joy with an apology.[41] Responses to her apology tended to be divided along party lines.[42]
In April 2018, further blog posts from 2005 through 2007 were brought to public attention. According toThe Washington Post, Reid's controversial remarks included encouraging her readers to watch the"truther" conspiracy-theory filmLoose 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."[43][44] Reid claimedJewish people spend half a million dollars on theirbar and bat mitzvah celebrations.[45] She also describedCNN'sWolf Blitzer, who is Jewish, as a "former flak for theAmerican Israeli Public Affairs Committee [sic]" who "doesn't even try to hide his affinity for his Israeli guests, or his partisanship for their cause".[46] TheZionist Organization of America called for MSNBC to fire Reid for promoting "sinister anti-Semitic canards".[47] Another controversial post, from 2007, contained a photoshopped image of SenatorJohn McCain's face superimposed on the body ofSeung-Hui Cho, who perpetrated theVirginia Tech shooting.[48]
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."[49] 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"[49] 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."[43]
On the September 1, 2020 episode ofThe ReidOut, Reid criticized PresidentDonald Trump's unwillingness to condemnKyle 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".[50] TheSouthern Poverty Law Center andMuslim Advocates, both civil rights organizations, and representativesIlhan Omar andRashida Tlaib criticized Reid's remarks as Islamophobic and called for an apology.[50] Conversely, commentatorJennifer Rubin defended Reid, arguing she had merely highlighted a double standard in the media without endorsing it.[50]
In 1997, Reid married Jason Reid, who later became adocumentary film editor.[2] The couple have three children.[11]
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.'
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."
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
