It’s been a rough couple of weeks for Joy Reid. The MSNBC host had to deal with the fallout from her past blog posts, which included anti-Semitic sentiments, homophobic posts, 9/11 trutherism, and smearing Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). For the latter, a blog post showed the Arizona Republican’s face photoshopped (poorly) on the Virginia Tech shooter.
Concerning anti-Semitism, Reid straight up supported the idea that Jews should be tossed out of Israel and accused CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer for being too nice in his coverage concerning Israeli issues. Here’s what she said (via The Federalist):
Blitzer’s behavior is not only anti-journalistic, it’s irresponsible and transparantly (sic) ideological. If he wants to do an editorial program promoting the interests of a foreign government (Israel,) he should petition his bosses at the network to do just that. Otherwise, if he is purporting to do ‘news,’ he should stick to the news, and put aside his AIPAC flak jacket. (Syrian Ambassador Imad Moustapha didn’t fare much better with MSNBC’s resident twitterbug Norah ‘Giggles’ O’Donnell, who even managed to characterize the U.S. veto of a U.N. resultuion (sic) condemning Israel’s use of excessive force in Gaza as a repudiation of criticism of Israel by the Security Council…)
Shame on CNN for allowing this spectacle to go on.
[…]
In a post from The Reid Report dated December 5, 2005,Reid said that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then-president of Iran, was really onto something when he suggested that the “Zionist regime” of Israel should just relocate to Europe.
“God is not a real estate broker,” the blogpost reads. “He can’t just give you land 1,000 years ago that you can come back and claim today.”
[…]
In several blogposts from 2006,Reid encouraged her readers to questionthe official narrative about what happened on 9/11 and pushed “Loose Change” a debunked movie produced in part by Alex Jones, of InfoWars, which claims that the attacks which killed more than 3,000 Americans were an act planned by the U.S. government.
When the homophobic posts resurfaced, The Daily Beast suspended her column.
Also, the Wayback Machine captured these posts at or near the time they were posted - over ten years ago. For this account to make sense, someone would have had to access Reid's blog with Dark Web credentials, then travel back in time https://t.co/1QxuL94fvG
— Joe Bernstein (@Bernstein) April 25, 2018
It’s been a slow-moving trainwreck because Reid claimed she was hacked concerning these posts, some of which date back nearly a decade. The WayBack Machine, which is run by the Internet Archive, records past Internet histories. There was no evidence that any hacking occurred and even if this was the case, time travel would be needed to pull it off. Nevertheless, the FBI opened up an investigation into the matter. No, Joy, this wasn’t the Russians. These were your own words. Now, no more fun and games, she admitted to everything last Friday, though she has yet to address the hacking nonsense (via Politico):
MSNBC host Joy Reid apologized Friday “for the collateral damage and pain” caused by recently unearthed posts from her old blog that stoked conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and depicted the head of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on the body of the Virginia Tech shooter.
“While I published my blog, starting in 2005, I wrote thousands of posts in real time on the issues of the day,” Reid said in a statement provided by an MSNBC spokesperson. “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.”
In a separate statement, the network broke its silence on the controversy, which has lingered since the host claimed without evidence in April that anti-gay posts on her now-defunct blog were planted by a hacker.
“Some of the things written by Joy on her old blog are obviously hateful and hurtful,” an MSNBC spokesperson said in the statement. “They are not reflective of the colleague and friend we have known at MSNBC for the past seven years.”
They added: “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.”
.@JoyAnnReid issues statement apologizing for inflammatory posts about McCain, 9/11, Israel on her former blog. Doesn't address her hacking claims. pic.twitter.com/VRlB5a2f7U
— David Rutz (@DavidRutz) June 1, 2018
So, she apologized. I guess that’s how things work in the liberal media. You can be a garbage person, but if you apologize—it’s all good. Well, within the halls of MSNBC, staffers are reportedly just sick of her games; with some of them noting that it’s utterly laughable to even suggest she was the victim of hacking. Sadly, some actually believe Reid’s claims because…Trump Derangement Syndrome is real and liberals feel safe in a bubble of illogicality (via Daily Beast):
The network‘s failure to address that dubious hacking claim has irked some inside 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Several employees who spoke to The Daily Beast—on condition of anonymity so as not to jeopardize their employment—said they were largely unimpressed with the statements, noting that many questions remain conspicuously unanswered.
“Everyone in the building is laughing at the idea that it was a hacker,” one MSNBC staffer told The Daily Beast.
“It’s just a joke,” said another employee.
According to several NBC insiders, however, some staffers on Reid’s show believed she was hacked—a sentiment shared by several of her friends in the media who first defended her in April.
Other staffers who spoke with The Daily Beast expressed a growing sense of alarm about how this ongoing saga may damage MSNBC’s reputation as a news outlet.
While Reid is well-liked and respected by colleagues, said one staffer, they are waiting for Reid and MSNBC management to demonstrate a sense of accountability for her inconvenient past writing beyond boilerplate apologies. “It’s very problematic,” said an MSNBC insider.
Particularly, several LGBT staffers at the network expressed feeling insulted by how Reid seemingly suffered no consequences for her old homophobic blog posts or transphobic tweets.
“How many apologies do we need?” another staffer asked.
Yet, there’s another issue. Over at IJ Review, Caleb Hull found a 2017 tweet, showing Reid pushing a post from Anime Right News. Anime Right is a site run by Nazis:
On July 12, 2017, MSNBC host Joy Reid shared a conspiracy theory on Twitter about Jared Kushner and his relationship with the Trump administration and a company called Genie Energy.
However, the article she shared is from an anime Nazi news website, whose staff openly supports Hitler and posts extremist articles to this day.
The tweet, as well as the original article on AnimeRight.news, have now been deleted, but thanks to the Internet archive Wayback Machine, they've been saved.
In 2017, Reid posted the link, adding that “Jared Kushner is close to @NYPost publisher Rupert Murdoch.”
Many of Reid's followers were quick to point out that the article was published on an extremist website, but her tweet remained up for several hours, according to several screenshots acquired by IJR.
It sounds like Reid tried to deceive us all—and the sad part is that some appear to have fallen for it. She wrote things that would have been national news for days if a conservative had published equally vile posts. Reid would have relished using her show and column to trash conservatives, paint a narrative, and use that as an overarching missile salvo against the Trump administration. It’s not shocking; just a day that ends in “y” for the Left. But this intruder came from inside the house. The hacking claims collapsed within days and yet, she’s evolved—so she’ll stick around. No conservative in media would be afforded the same courtesy. An op-ed on Mediaite says Reid shouldn’t be fired, but resign. That might be the best option, but she won’t. The network’s inability to refusal to hold her accountable demonstrates that. So, the moral in liberal land is the same as it ever was: you can be a garbage human being, but if you hold the right views, we’ll protect you and all you have to say is sorry.
Serious question: Which excuse is she sticking with? Because we’ve had three so far:
— T. Becket Adams (@BecketAdams) June 1, 2018
1) Hackers
2) I don’t remember
3) I remember and I’ve evolved https://t.co/HXDx3Gy6US
Editor's Note: I got the name of that Nazi site wrong. It's was Anime Right News, not Right Anime News. Post has been updated to reflect the changes.