“I grew up watching the greats of TV news…Murrow, Cronkite, Colbert,” 26-year-old Ronan Farrow said at the top of his first “Ronan Farrow Daily,” one of two new shows on MSNBC today.
An opening segment on the turmoil in Ukraine was fronted by NBC News chief foreign correspondent Richard Engel. Former Defense Secretary Bill Cohen and former Obama senior adviser and current MSNBC contributor David Axelrod were his first guests. Farrow openly embraced being a cable news novice: “What’s going on here, which camera do I look at? Who knows!”
Following Farrow at 2pmET was Joy Reid, host of “The Reid Report.” Reid began with domestic politics and the annual National Governors Association conference in D.C., inviting former Florida Governor Charlie Crist and former Republican Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison as her first guests. Last month, Reid told us she was looking forward to bringing on GOP voices. She also interviewed Smokey Robinson later on the show. “Congratulations on your show. I’m really happy to be on the first one,” said Robinson.
Missing from the new afternoon lineup was Andrea Mitchell, whose show moved to NoonET. MSNBC tells us Mitchell had a commitment scheduled long before news of the time slot change and will be back tomorrow. Mitchell told told TVNewser last week the move an hour earlier will give her more time to focus on NBC News reporting.