What Joy Reid Did After MSNBC Let Her Go Is the Blueprint

Joy Reid Didn’t Fall — She Leaped

I just love how Joy Reid is moving after MSNBC let her go.

Just look at her.

She’s having the time of her life. All that talent. It’s bubbling all over the internet now. This is a classic pivot. This is what real joy looks like when you own and control your destiny.

She’s inspiring a lot of people.

If you don’t know what happened, her exit came amid a major reshuffling at MSNBC. Other hosts and staff were affected too. New leadership came in. The evening lineup was reorganized. Ensemble shows replaced individual programs. That’s the corporate media cycle.

But Joy has been clear: this wasn’t just about ratings.

She’s said there were tensions around editorial freedom, corporate constraints, and controversial political coverage. She described leaving corporate media as liberating.

And you can see it all over her face.

Her whole face looks like freedom. The joy and happiness of owning her own thoughts, her own voice, and her own media? That’s liberation. The Black community is down with her because she’s real. She’s not fake. She speaks truth — and she does it with a smile.

Here’s the blessing most people miss.

Being on MSNBC for that long branded her for life.

Name recognition. Credibility. Discipline. Preparation. Execution. She was must-watch TV if you wanted her take on the news of the day. When you lose an opportunity where mainstream media has branded the hell out of you, that’s not a loss — that’s a launchpad.

Now you create on your own time.
Say what you want to say.
Control everything.

What We Should Study About Her Pivot

There are some things we need to pay attention to about Joy Reid’s rise as an independent media journalist:

1. She didn’t sit around licking her wounds.
   She didn’t take a long time to recover from the disappointment. She moved.

2. She didn’t beg for another cable news job.
   No groveling. No “pick me” energy. She said, I’m creating my own lane.

3. She is unapologetically Black.
   A real Black woman. Not watered down. Not code-switching for comfort.

4. Her resolve matters.
   We should study the steps she’s taking right now. Trust me — in a few years, what she’s building is going to be huge.

5. She has always been dignified.
   Even when others were getting paid way more than her on the network, she didn’t play the envy or jealousy game. That tells you who she is.

She strikes me as someone who genuinely does not give a damn what people think — but she does it in the nicest, most grounded way possible.

The Corporate Media Identity Trap

In corporate television, a lot of people lose their sense of self when the brand is taken away.

I work for CNN.
I work for ABC.
I work for CBS.
I work for MSNBC.

And when they snatch that rug from under you — who are you?

Depression sets in.
The phone stops ringing.
Your media friends disappear.

Not because you changed — but because you’re unemployed.

You have to stop attaching your worth to call letters and brands you did not create. You are an employee. A high-paid hired hand. These are short-term gigs, and you should treat them that way.

You must always have an exit plan.

I’ve been caught off guard by firings. Some I never saw coming. Others? I could see them a mile away. This is a high-risk, high-reward business. You have to accept corporate decisions that affect your life.

The problem comes when your ego won’t let you accept reality.

How dare they fire me?
After all I’ve done?

Yeah. It happens to the best of us — including my sister Joy Reid.

But look at her now.

She’s smiling. Creating. Free. When you’ve held high-paying radio or TV jobs, being “chosen” can inflate your ego. You start believing it could never happen to you.

Until it does.

That doesn’t mean you’re not great. It just means a group of people made a decision based on preference — not your worth.

Don’t get upset when people don’t choose you.

Choose yourself. Always.

Joy flipped this situation in her favor because I believe she always wanted this freedom. You can see it in her body language. I watched her with Jackie Reid on a podcast — and we can’t leave out Jackie’s role in this journey.

Jackie Reid is an early pioneer of independent journalism. So when she says to Joy, “Welcome home,” that wasn’t symbolic.

That was real.

Final Word

This road is not for people who need validation from white-run corporate media. If that’s what makes you whole, you’ll never be satisfied.

Independence is a spiritual journey.

It’s like stepping onto a flying trapeze without a net — complete trust in God, complete belief in yourself.

When I turned 50, I just jumped.

I just wanted to know what that felt like.

Joy Reid knows exactly what it feels like now.

And she looks free.