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 Good evening, I'm Dylan Byers.
Welcome back to In the Room, my biweekly private email on the intrigue and inside story behind what’s going on in the media industry.
In today’s email, my response to the question that MSNBC executives won't answer: who's really in charge over there and what are they doing, exactly?
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 CNN’s remarkable coverage of Ukraine has evidenced its sizable advantage over its nearest rival, MSNBC, begging the two-fold question: who is in charge over there and what are they doing, exactly? Early on the morning of February 2nd, I sent a text to an NBCUniversal executive asking, as diplomatically as possible, how MSNBC was going to address its slate of seemingly monumental challenges. The network's sole primetime star, Rachel Maddow, had just announced that she was going on hiatus for at least a month, a surprise move that underscored her immense value—ratings for her show cratered by 50 percent in February, and by 62 percent in the demo—and presaged the crisis that the network will face after she leaves primetime for good later this year. Brian Williams had also abandoned the network, depriving it of another marquee name and reliable standby for breaking stories and special events. The evening lineup seemed programmed mainly for the leftmost wing of the Democratic party, which constantly bewildered the more centrist journalists on dayside.
Meanwhile, the network's myriad streaming services felt like B-side extensions of the linear offering, mostly populated by lesser-known talents. So, I asked via text, was there a strategy? At that point, after all, the network’s most creative programming decision was bequeathing a fifth hour of air to the network's one other star, Joe Scarborough, presumably to at least partly placate his agent, Ari Emanuel, who seems to preside over the network these days like a feudal lord.
Shortly after I sent the message, however, the news broke that Jeff Zucker had resigned from CNN after acknowledging a consensual relationship with his top aide, Allison Gollust. In response to my inquiry regarding the state of MSNBC, the executive replied simply: “This still the biggest story?” No, I replied. Decidedly not.
Five weeks later, however, none of MSNBC's problems have gone away...
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FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT  Russia’s horrific invasion of Ukraine is reshaping the global economy. For Hollywood, that means one thing: a torrent of future litigation. ERIQ GARDNER  The anniversary of Stalin’s death last week was a cruel reminder inside Russia that history frequently repeats itself. JULIA IOFFE  The latest inside reporting on Thiel’s political maneuvering—and Obama’s private visit with Laurene’s Emerson Collective. THEODORE SCHLEIFER  On Wall Street, the horror of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has become a uniquely dark investing opportunity. WILLIAM D. COHAN
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