MSNBC’s Primetime ‘Avengers’: Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace and Joy Reid Assemble to Battle Cable News’ Old Rules
variety.comBrian Steinberg Senior TV Editor Joy Reid got the call while she was waiting in a restaurant at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport to get on a plane to Paris.
Nicolle Wallace received a summons, she remembers, when “I was in the middle of nowhere with my son and had no makeup.” To respond to similar requests, says Rachel Maddow, “I have made illegal U-turns on the state highway.” When “The Avengers” are needed, no one can ignore the alert.
Reid, Wallace and Maddow look nothing like Iron Man, Captain America, Thor or any of the other super-powered characters who populate the well-watched Marvel films from Disney.
And yet, on MSNBC, where each anchors her own program, they are part of an assemblage that is being convened with greater frequency. “When there’s a moment,” says Rashida Jones, MSNBC’s president, the network likes to “bring the team together and elevate the seriousness of the news.” Maddow, Wallace and Reid join the rest of the hosts of the NBCUniversal-backed outlet’s opinion and analysis shows — Chris Hayes, Lawrence O’Donnell, Alex Wagner, Ari Melber, Jen Psaki and Stephanie Ruhle — in a concept that breaks down the hour-by-hour schedule so typical of cable news and attempts to turn a single evening’s coverage into an event.
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