Rashida Jones, a respected news operator who has led MSNBC for four years, will leave the NBCUniversal cable outlet to pursue other opportunities, she informed executives and staffers Tuesday.
She will be replaced on an interim basis by Rebecca Kutler, a veteran news executive with a long track record of managing talent and devising innovative programming concepts. She takes the lead role at MSNBC as it faces not only the challenges of covering the Trump administration for its demoralized liberal audience but also the prospect of being spun off into a new publicly traded company by corporate parent Comcast.
Kutler joined MSNBC as senior vice president of content strategy in 2022, after a long run at CNN. During her time at the Warner Bros. Discovery-backed outlet, she not only worked as an executive producer for Don Lemon and John King, among others, but played a role in establishing personalities such as Abby Phillip, Van Jones, Chris Wallace, Audie Cornish and Kasie Hunt at the network. She was poised to have a senior role at CNN+, the streaming outlet that was scuttled after launch by CNN’s corporate parent.
One person familiar with the situation said Jones felt the time had come to consider other roles after an intense cycle that has involved not only managing a primetime schedule as Rachel Maddow, the star of the network, scaled back her presence, but exploring digital projects and live events as linear audiences migrate to streaming.
