Rashida Jones is the President for MSNBC. She is a news executive with two decades of experience in breaking news, major events programming, enterprising new content initiatives and setting the overall editorial vision for large content teams.
Prior to becoming President of MSNBC, Jones led and served as the Executive Producer of breaking news and major event coverage for both NBC News and MSNBC, including Election Nights, Primary and Presidential Debates, Political Conventions, breaking news, and other major coverage events. She was also responsible for creating high priority editorial initiatives that span all NBC News networks and platforms. Jones oversaw the NBC News Decision Desk – a team of data scientists responsible for making all race call decisions on primary and election nights. Further, Jones was credited with leading the business strategy and launching NBC News’ streaming network in 2019.
Jones joined NBC in 2013 as an Executive Producer, and in 2014 was named Managing Editor at MSNBC Dayside. Prior, she served as News Director for the NBC affiliate in Columbia, South Carolina, where she rebuilt and rebranded the news team to focus on deep investigative reporting. The station was solidly #1 in the market during her tenure. She was also Director of Live Programming at The Weather Channel, leading coverage and programming for some of the network’s most historic weather events including Hurricane Katrina, mass tornado outbreaks and paralyzing snow storms.
Jones is an active member of several journalism organizations, including the Alliance for Women in Media, where she serves as a Gracie Ambassador, a distinction offered to Senior Executives eager to further the organization’s mission to support women in journalism. Jones is also a board member of the Carole Kneeland Project for Responsible Journalism, an organization dedicated to training news managers and instilling them with the fundamentals, values and ethics to be powerful leaders in their newsrooms. In addition, she is a member of The Academy of Television Arts and Sciences and the National Association of Black Journalists.
Jones is a graduate of Hampton University, where she was recently inducted into the Scripps Howard Journalism Hall of Fame and Hampton University’s 40 under 40 Society, both honors acknowledging her outstanding work in the journalism industry.