2021’s Biggest Losers in Media

No industry lost more credibility in 2021 than the media. These guys lied, misled, and lost their audiences at rates almost humorous.

Aside from a few winners — like Tucker Carlson, Joe Rogan, Pat McAfee, Megyn Kelly, Matt Walsh, and Alex Cooper — most media members were losers in 2021.

So I picked the four biggest of the year:

Joy Reid

Joy Reid is disgusting. It’s shameful that even MSNBC, a network that reaches aging liberals, allows her to spread such hate and lies on television.

Reid spent most of her 2021 screaming like a wounded animal for relevancy. Notably, she connected — without any evidence — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to a sex trafficking ring and then said that DeSantis “killed children.”

See, Reid hates white people. She kept reminding us weekly.

According to Reid, conservatives only keep black people alive to cook white people’s steaks. What does that mean? We don’t know. Reid didn’t provide any examples. So we just went with it.

More recently, Reid posted a cringe headline to her MSNBC blog following the Kyle Rittehnhoue verdict. Check it out:

MSNBC allowed that too.

Interestingly, it was once unclear whether Reid hated white men or white women more. 2021 cleared that up when Reid blamed white women for pressuring schools into teaching “Confederate Race Theory.”

Reid is a bigoted racist with a small audience. Reid’s primetime show, called something with her name in it, failed to beat cable news shows that air in the daytime.

Keith Olbermann

Keith Olbermann is no longer a sports anchor or a political pundit. He’s nothing. Olbermann is a sad man who yells conspiracies into an iPhone on his balcony.

In 2021 alone, Olbermann blamed Dave Portnoy and Barstool for a Michigan school shooting, said the U.S. should restrict vaccine access from Texans, called for Tucker Carlson’s arrest, spread misinformation about Ashli Babbitt, and canceled his failing YouTube show.

Olbermann is living proof of what years of lies, misery, hypocrisy, and baseless indignation do to a human.

The sad state of Olbermann is a warning to the woke. This is how it ends: lonely and pathetic.

Maria Taylor

Maria Taylor was on track to succeed Stephen A. Smith as the face of ESPN. Then in 2020, she changed course. Taylor saw George Floyd’s death as an opportunity. She knew that her bosses at ESPN now felt pressure from Disney to prove they were not racist. So they allowed pundits to cover alleged police brutality on ESPN’s airwaves irresponsibly.

After Taylor saw the Twitter reaction to her misinformed “I said what I said” rant on racism, she felt she was an invincible force as she entered a contract year in 2021.

Taylor also used a misleading narrative that ESPN didn’t re-sign three other black women — Jemele Hill, Josina Anderson, and Cari Champion — as leverage. Blue checks warned ESPN it better not lose another black woman ever again — ever. Therefore, Taylor was so confident that she turned down a $5 million a year offer from ESPN — $5 million wasn’t good enough for Maria the Great.

She wanted Stephen A. Smith money, which is $12 million a year but she thought it was $8 million. Nevertheless, even ESPN couldn’t comply with that demand. So it got ugly.

Taylor and her team tried to burn the walls at ESPN. They held onto a year-old privately recorded audio call of Rachel Nichols, to which they leaked to a useful idiot at the New York Times for more leverage. Taylor’s team cost Nichols her career. Nichols’ career is over.

Ultimately, Taylor left ESPN for NBC. Now, she’s an afterthought making less money than ESPN offered her. If it weren’t for a picture with her new colleague Drew Brees, whom she called racist, she’d be irrelevant.

As @burackbobby_ points out either Maria Taylor is a forgiving person, who doesn’t hold a grudge (seems fairly unlikely given the Rachel Nichols incident) or #MariaTaylor was never actually mad at Drew Brees, she was only angry because it was good for her brand. –@claytravis pic.twitter.com/8gTcmxTFPV

— OutKick (@Outkick) August 31, 2021

When you use your race and gender to earn a bigger paycheck, you are a loser. Especially when your plot fails in the end as Taylor’s did.

Chris Cuomo

I didn’t blame Chris Cuomo for putting his family first. However, an AG report in November revealed that Cuomo didn’t act as a brother over an anchor. Instead, he worked as both a brother and an anchor. Cuomo used the power and resources inherited from CNN to dig up dirt on his brother’s accusers. And so CNN fired him.

Cuomo also departed his daily SiriusXM radio show, claiming he needed time to ponder his future following CNN’s decision.

I do expect Cuomo to return to media in some form, though it may not be in 2022. A reported sexual misconduct allegation looms over Cuomo’s future, likely taking other networks and streaming services out of the running for now.

Cuomo may have to settle for his own YouTube or digital show, a job separate from corporate overlords. And while that route can be lucrative, it’s likely Cuomo will never return to the same level of relevancy he had in primetime.