MSNBC has hired veteran news producer and executive Scott Matthews to be its new senior vice president of Newsgathering as new president Rebecca Kutler continues to revamp the cable channel since taking the top job earlier this year.
Matthews will start on Monday, Mar. 17. He was most recently the news director and VP at ABC7 in New York City, and also spent nine years as a VP of specials at CNBC from 2011 to 2020; his résumé also includes a 10-month run at CNN+, the streaming service that shut down weeks after launching in 2022.
At MSNBC, Matthews will be looking to hire more than 100 people, including journalists, field producers, correspondents and photographers, as he aims to bolster the channel’s news team. His role will include overseeing the team of field producers and correspondents, establishing a new assignment desk and setting MSNBC’s editorial priorities.
“Scott’s new role reflects our plans to build out MSNBC’s domestic, Washington and international newsgathering operations and expand our presence in the field,” Kutler said in a Thursday memo to staff.
She added that he is “ideally positioned for this role, having spent more than two decades in newsgathering and production in both local and national news.”
Matthews has won several Emmy awards during his career for production, editing and his work as a news director.
The new hire comes a few days after Kutler and MSNBC set White House Correspondents Association president and Politico writer Eugene Daniels as senior Washington correspondent; Daniels will also be a co-host of “The Weekend” on Saturdays and Sundays from 7 to 10 a.m. ET alongside fellow new hire Jackie Alemany, who joined MSNBC this week from the Washington Post.
Kutler was named MSNBC president last month, after she had served a month as its interim boss following the departure of Rashida Jones in January. She is tasked with finding a way for MSNBC to rebound from a post-2024 election ratings decline — something the channel has had some success with recently, as its ratings jumped following the inauguration of President Trump.
