Alternate headline: “Ezra Klein Hit Hardest.”
Chris Hayes will take over the 8 p.m. time slot on MSNBC in the next month, the channel is planning to announce on Thursday morning, the day after the current host of that hour, Ed Schultz, said he was moving from the weekdays to the weekends.
Mr. Hayes, a liberal intellectual who has hosted a well-regarded weekend morning program on MSNBC for the past 18 months, is a protege of Rachel Maddow, the highest-rated host on the channel. He will become the lead-in for her 9 p.m. program, “The Rachel Maddow Show.”
The change is predicated on the belief that MSNBC can win a wider audience with Mr. Hayes than it did with Mr. Schultz, a champion of the working class whose bluster didn’t always pair well with Ms. Maddow and the channel’s other prime time program, “The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell.” Mr. Hayes, on the other hand, is just as wonky as Ms. Maddow and Mr. O’Donnell, and is a regular contributor to both of their programs.
Once news leaked that the loud-talking, shallow-thinking Ed Schultz was on the way out, there was a lot of speculation that The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein would inherit his spot.
If that in fact was the case, when it comes to credibility, MSNBC definitely made the right decision in choosing Chris Hayes over Klein.
For all of MSNBC’s flaws, to the network’s credit, it is openly leftist. Klein, on the other hand, is not. He refuses to come out as a left-winger and continues to hide behind his phony shield of “objective journalism.” Everyone knows that pose is a lie, but Klein finds that shield useful for pushing his leftist propaganda.
Hayes is openly left-wing, which automatically gives him the credibility Klein so sorely lacks.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC
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