Inside MS NOW: The women leading the new MSNBC

I not too long ago sat down with 4 of MS NOW’s most distinguished women journalists: senior investigative reporter Carol Leonnig, The Briefing host and former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki, The Weeknight co-anchor and Clock It with Symone & Eugene co-host Symone Sanders Townsend, and Way Too Early anchor and senior Capitol Hill reporter Ali Vitali. We talked about what it is prefer to be a lady in media proper now—particularly at an outlet based with a left-wing lens, making it an virtually computerized Trump goal.

“It looks something like President Donald Trump calling female reporters.”piggy,” “ugly“,” and “stupid.” His administration has additionally filed billions in lawsuits towards information organizations. The FCC has opened investigations into a number of retailers.

“This administration is taking it to a new level,” Leonnig, a five-time Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who spent greater than twenty years at the Washington Post earlier than becoming a member of MS NOW, informed me. “So many of our amazing female anchors are being bullied right by this administration, one way or the other, and hate mail or stuff from Trump administration aids is coming at them so publicly and so personally.”

The White House did not instantly reply to Fortune‘s request for remark.

MS NOW is barely 5 months outdated, having rebranded from MSNBC in November after mum or dad firm Versant cut up from Comcast and NBC News, forcing the channel to construct its personal newsroom. MS NOW posted double-digit scores development in the first quarter of this yr, has added tons of of jobs whereas different newsrooms lower them, and it stands out on YouTube, the place its channel has extra views than these of ABC, CBS, and NBC News mixed.

So with this group of journalists, I anticipated a severe dialog a couple of pivotal second in media historical past (which I received). But this was additionally a bunch of women who genuinely could not cease hyping one another up. (They even—a number of instances—launched an off-the-cuff marketing campaign to get Leonnig a increase.)

“This is a moment where women all across the media apparatus are navigating through the sexism and rising to the occasion,” Sanders Townsend mentioned. Psaki and Leonnig highlighted cnn anchor Kaitlan Collins; Mary Bruce, the chief White House correspondent for ABC News; and MS NOW’s Laura Barrón-López for not backing down. In February, Collins requested Trump throughout a presser what he’d say to Jeffrey Epstein’s survivors, and as a substitute of answering, he referred to as her “the worst reporter” and informed her as a “young woman” she should smile more. Collins responded that smiling is not acceptable when discussing a intercourse trafficker’s victims.

But Psaki mentioned women journalists aren’t participating in a battle by highlighting the Trump administration’s assaults. Rather, “they are doing their jobs and they are pressing the administration for answers, and they’re not backing off.”

The women of MS NOW aren’t dwelling on the Trump administration’s techniques, both. They’re too busy breaking information.

“Nobody is giving an inch to that kind of sexism…especially in prime time when so many of our amazing female anchors are being bullied by this administration,” Leonnig mentioned. “Nobody’s changing course on good reporting and good breaking down of what’s important.”

Covering Trump’s second time period has compelled sharper editorial instincts. Leonnig described an administration that generates “a tsunami of information,” requiring troublesome selections about what issues most. Sanders Townsend talked about connecting tales again to viewers’ lives: “This is a foreign political story as much as it is a democracy story, as much as it is a story about the economy.” And Vitali, who began masking Trump as a 25-year-old marketing campaign embedded in 2015, mentioned the expertise has given her “greater clarity” about separating distraction from substance as a result of “we’ve dispensed with the notion of, ‘oh my God, he’s posting on social media.’”

They credit score numerous that resilience to MS NOW President Rebecca Kutler, who has been leading the group whereas present process breast most cancers therapy, which she has since accomplished. Leonnig recalled that the day earlier than Kutler publicly disclosed her prognosis, she referred to as Leonnig in for a face-to-face—to not focus on her well being, however to congratulate her on a narrative.

“That was your priority the day before and amidst these treatments,” Leonnig mentioned. “That blew me away.”

Sydney Lake
sydney.lake@fortune.com

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