MS NOW, Known for Opinion, Brings Harder News Into Mix

The cable outlet known until Saturday morning as MSNBC has long been known for newsy hot takes. Now it’s putting some emphasis on reporters’ news breaks.

Yes, that was MSNBC in September touting a dispatch from reporters Carol Leonnig and Ken Dilanian, who found the FBI in 2024 allegedly recorded current White House border czar Tom Homan accepting a paper bag containing $50,000 in cash from undercover agents posing as business executives. After President Trump took office, however, the probe was shut down, they reported. Suddenly, MSNBC had kicked off a news cycle, instead of just weighing in on it later in the evening.

The network, which just changed its name to MS NOW as it splits from NBC News and NBCUniversal, has gained some notice recently, but not necessarily always tied to the latest rhetorical zingers from Lawrence O’Donnell, insights from Rachel Maddow or inside-the-government analysis from Jen Psaki or Nicolle Wallace. Where the network once relied entirely on the journalism apparatus of NBC News to inform its programming, it now has dozens of its own journalists trying to break stories about the White House, the Department of Justice, heck, maybe even Taylor Swift if it’s something about which viewers might care. The network was first to secure Senator Alex Padilla in June for a live interview after he was forcibly removed from a Department of Homeland Security press conference. The network has even landed appearances by newsmakers who might not typically come on MSNBC, including U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune.

There are ambitious plans in place for a newly built journalism team. “We are planning to have our reporters talking to individuals in communities to understand their view, what America looks like now, and it will be, you know, it will be honest,” says Joey Cole, who has joined MS NOW as vice president of planning after working as a producer for NBC News. “We’re going to be raw.”

Could the infusion of home-grown journalism dim some of MS NOW’s blue leanings? Facts, after all, can sometimes get in the way of a good primetime soliloquy. And what if some of the findings of MS NOW’s news staff clash with what the network’s primetime partisan die-hards want to hear?

“I think it’s important to note that we are a news department. And in our jobs the news and the facts will take us to whatever conclusion — the facts take us to in the story. And that is what we are here to do, what we focus on,’