Rashida Jones Appointed President of MSNBC, Making Her the First Black Woman Helming a Cable Network

Big changes are coming to one cable news network, and it's being hailed as an "about time" situation. It was announced that Rashida Jones was being promoted to president of MSNBC.  

This makes her the first Black woman to helm a cable news network. She'll replace the network's current president, who is leaving at the start of 2021. For many, this is a big deal, and it's refreshing that the news coverage is focused on her and not her husband or family. 

According to Vogue, Rashida Jones will officially start her new role as the network's president on Feb. 1, 2021, replacing current president Phil Griffin's 25 years at the news station. He has held the role of president for the past 12 years.  

Rashida currently serves as a senior vice president of the network, overseeing major news events, breaking news, and daytime programming at MSNBC. 

With Rashida's promotion, she will become the first Black executive to run a major U.S. news network and the most prominent Black women in cable news. 

"Rashida knows and understands MSNBC, in part because it's where she started when she first joined NBCU seven years ago," NBCUniversal News Group Chairman Cesar Conde wrote in an email to employees. "She knows that it is the people who work here that make it great, and she understands its culture. She also appreciates the impact and potential of the brand."

There isn't a lot known about Rashida's personal life, which is not really relevant. It's refreshing to have the news cover her major promotion and focus on her career rather than her personal life. And Rashida likes to keep her personal life private.

Often, when a woman makes waves in the industry, there are many more discussions about how she will balance such a large responsibility with anything she needs to attend to in her personal life. It's unnecessary, and yet we've seen it happen time and again. 

When Marissa Mayer was announced as the new CEO of Yahoo! in 2012, her journey into motherhood was often discussed in conjunction with her job. The media reported that she had given birth two months after taking the job and took a maternity leave of only two weeks. She was then criticized for setting up a nursery in her office at the company and hiring a full-time nanny to help her while she was at work. 

This is an issue we see time and again when women take on prominent positions. This holds especially true when their roles are ones typically offered to men. In June 2017, Marissa resigned from Yahoo! when Verizon completed its acquisition of the company. 

We're thrilled to see women take more space in media and tech. Rashida is the first Black woman in such a senior role in cable media, and we're about to see the second-highest position in politics being helmed by another Black woman. It feels like it's about time.