MSNBC has some hosts who you have to wonder what they have on the management of the network because there's no way merit or even basic ability would get these people a television show. Al Sharpton comes to mind, as does Nicolle Wallace, but first and foremost is the pile of garbage named Joy Reid.
Sharpton is famous for race-baiting and riots, and he's also the only person in the cable news game with an actual body count in their wake. He's a pioneer in the art of the shakedown, having made a fortune off corporate America hoping to avoid him showing up at their headquarters, and he's a pioneer in not paying taxes or court-ordered settlements for losing lawsuits. His girlfriends didn't seem to mind his wife, and his wife didn't seem to mind his girlfriends. It's a hell of a racket.
Wallace, on the other hand, only has her looks going for her, and she's now 50. What comes out of her mouth is as vapid as anything else on the network, but you can only keep having Claire McCaskill on so many times to look good by comparison before the trick wears thin. Her insights are about as deep as you'd expect from someone so closely associated with Jeb Bush can be.
Then there's Joy Reid. To say she brings nothing to the table implies that there's a table. There is not. She used to have a daily show on MSNBC and was such a colossal failure that she was relegated to weekends. For reasons that could seemingly only have to do with losing a high stakes bet, Reid was moved back to days because her show was a "hit" on the weekends. (Having a hit show on cable news on the weekends is a lot like being the tallest midget…)
Joy, who could only be more ironically named if her parents had chosen "Pretty" or "Smart," is absolutely obsessed with race. Even Al Sharpton watches her show and thinks she needs to dial it back some.
That being said, if you're as dumb as a hammer, everything is a nail. This one-trick-pony knows what her gimmick is, and if you can't be smart, at least consistent.
On the war in Ukraine, Joy told her dwindling audience that the only reason anyone in the United States or the media cares about those people dying is because they're white. "As the world watches the devastation unfold in Ukraine, nearly 4,000 miles away, another crisis is deepening that we don't hear much about in the U.S., and that is the war in Yemen," Joy started whining.
"The coverage of Ukraine has revealed a pretty radical disparity in how human Ukrainians look and feel to western media compared to their Browner and Blacker counterparts, with some reporters using very telling comparisons in their analyses of the war," Reid continued. "Let's face it, the world is paying attention because this is happening in Europe. If this was happening anywhere else, would we see the same outpouring of support and compassion?"
The moronic host then concluded, "This is a teachable moment for us in the media. We aren't afraid to call out our own industry. There is a lot of soul-searching that we need to do in Western media about why some wars and lives seem to matter more than others."
There's a very simple reason what's happening in Ukraine matters more than what's happening in Yemen: one was invaded by a former super-power looking to regain that status through rebuilding its empire, and the other is a civil war in the third-world hell hole.
What's happening in Yemen is horrible, but it's being done to Yemenis to Yemenis. A foreign power has not invaded. Ukraine was invaded by Russia. That's a big difference because it involves national sovereignty.
Joy is too dumb or hopes her audience is to know the difference.
More than this, Joy has made this case before. Remember Gabby Petito, the attractive white girl who was murdered by her boyfriend? Reid railed against coverage of that case by calling it "missing white woman syndrome" and arguing that missing black women don't get anywhere near the same amount of coverage.
On this account, she was right – the Petito story was horrible, but it was a local story that should have been covered that way. I have complained before about the hierarchy of media interest in stories – attractive white girl as victim or perp, followed by black person victimized by police, followed by…nothing. The media doesn't care beyond that. So on this, Joy was right.
But Joy has a TV show, a show on which, presumably, she can cover whatever she wants. She complained about the media covering a missing white woman and not missing black women, then never covered missing black women. She complains about the media covering Ukraine over Yemen, then doesn't cover Yemen.
Maybe Joy is too busy having white-haired Fat Albert on to whine about how everything is racist to do what she claims desperately needs to be done? Or maybe she's just a horrible fraud of a person exploiting any and everything to make a quick buck? The truth is likely a combination of both. Joy Reid is proof MSNBC has zero standards.