ABC canceled its “Roseanne” reboot Tuesday hours after its lead star, comedian Roseanne Barr, made some clearly racist remarks on Twitter.
“Muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby= [former aide and longtime Obama confidant Valerie Jarrett],” Barr said in one such tweet.
Now here’s the funny part: In the moments leading up to the network’s final decision on the fate of its newly rebooted sitcom, NBC News’ chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell wondered aloud: “What do you have to do on social media to get fired from a top rated show on an American broadcast network?”
If you can believe it, Mitchell directed the question to her colleague Joy Reid, who managed somehow to avoid getting fired this year after she was caught lying about writing multiple anti-gay posts for her personal blog nearly a decade ago.
.@mitchellreports addresses Roseanne controversy on air:
“What do you have to do on social media to get fired from a top rated show on an American broadcast network?” pic.twitter.com/y1LEZutf0A
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) May 29, 2018
Just so we’re all on the same page about what happened here: Mitchell asked Reid, who very recently claimed she was the victim of a widespread conspiracy to make it appear as if she authored these blog posts 10 years ago, to explain the absurdity of television executives supposedly giving a pass to talent who say incendiary, bigoted things.
Did no one at MSNBC consider the irony in Mitchell handing the discussion over to Reid?
Oh, by the way, ABC canceled “Roseanne.” Reid still has a job.
In fact, Reid doesn’t just have a job. She also has the unequivocal support of her MSNBC colleagues and other like-minded political partisans, all of whom cheered when she kinda-sorta admitted she made up the entire story about hackers planting anti-gay materials on her now-defunct personal blog.
[Related: After ‘Roseanne,’ conservatives ask why Joy Reid is still at NBC]
“Everyone of us will walk in [Reid’s] shoes some day [sic] – filled with remorse and regret over something we have said or done, but I predict that few will do so this eloquently,” said MSNBC’s Nicole Wallace. “Sending support and admiration to you and your amazing panel and team [Reid].”
MSNBC’s Rachael Maddow said elsewhere, “Brains, guts, heart and soul – beloved Joy Reid has always been a treasured and brilliant colleague, but I’ve never been prouder to work with her than I am now.”
“Big Love to [Reid] AND her brave panel for taking this issue head on and moving our understanding of LGBTQ issues forward,” added MSNBC’s Ali Velshi.
So, what does it take to get fired at MSNBC?
