After years in conventional media, Pleasure Reid is embarking on a brand new chapter on her personal phrases—one that mixes the honesty her viewers expects with the liberty to talk with out filters.
The veteran journalist and best-selling creator settles into our dialog with the identical heat and directness which have related her with audiences for years. It’s a mix of honesty and approachability that defines her voice. Since launching The Pleasure Reid Present podcast in June, she’s been navigating her personal path with that very same genuine fashion.
“Most significantly, I’m feeling fantastic,” Reid says, reflecting on the whirlwind months since her departure from MSNBC throughout Black Historical past Month. “I’m producing content material that I like, that I’m tremendous happy with. I’m doing a present that I like, and it’s been, to me, the proper transition from conventional to this new media.”
The numbers inform the story of that profitable transition. Inside two weeks of launch, The Pleasure Reid Present reached a million streams on YouTube—a milestone that arrived with a congratulatory e-mail and award from the platform. “It simply made me really feel so good that it’s like my individuals are right here with me, and we’re doing the factor.”
The podcast’s early success was anchored by strategic visitor reserving that showcased Reid’s vary and connections. Her opening interview with comic and author Amber Ruffin set the tone: “She got here to the studio and we caught up within the basement, like Massive Tigger,” Reid laughs, referencing the enduring Rap Metropolis: Tha Basement present—one in every of many nostalgic callbacks woven all through the sequence. The interview carried out exceptionally properly, validating Reid’s instincts about what her viewers craved.
However she says a collaborative particular protection occasion really demonstrated the facility of unbiased media. Reid reached out to fellow departed community journalists Don Lemon and Jim Acosta with a daring proposal: be a part of forces for complete protection of President Donald Trump’s June 14 navy parade.
“I stated, would you guys have an interest and open to doing a particular protection with me… I really feel just like the three of us ought to get collectively and type an excellent group,” Reid explains.
The end result was groundbreaking—three broadcasters from two completely different networks, all having left company media, delivering three hours of stay protection that included protest protection from a number of cities, professional evaluation and man-on-the-street interviews. The printed was simulcast throughout all their platforms—YouTube, Substack and their particular person exhibits—making a cumulative viewers that rivaled conventional networks.
“We bought what a community would get cumulatively between all six of these platforms,” Reid notes with satisfaction.
The podcast has additionally featured in-depth interviews, together with a dialog with Ebrahim Rasool, the previous South African ambassador to the U.S. The dialogue explored the Trump administration’s strategy to South Africa—particularly the controversy round Rasool’s expulsion and the ‘white genocide’ narrative that gained traction on the time.
For Reid, a daughter of immigrants from the Congo and Guyana, the choice to maintain transferring ahead slightly than take a break was pushed by a way of urgency.
“I feel occasions sort of dictated how I moved in that second,” she explains. “I misplaced the MSNBC gig throughout Black Historical past Month, which was fascinating, however there was quite a bit that was additionally taking place in February. Folks began actually disappearing off of our streets for writing op-eds that the administration didn’t like, or seemingly only for being the wrong-color immigrant.”
This private connection to the immigration disaster shapes Reid’s perspective on why Black Individuals should have interaction with these points.
“The fact is that Black immigrants are so deeply built-in into the African American story—into our tradition,” she says. “If you happen to care about African American historical past, it’s important to perceive how deeply individuals who had been born exterior the USA are woven into that historical past. If you happen to’re ignoring immigration, it’s important to ignore Malcolm X, it’s important to ignore Marcus Garvey, it’s important to ignore Stokely Carmichael.”
Reid provides, “No one asks the place you had been born whenever you’re adopted round Bloomingdale’s, or Macy’s, or Walmart. No one asks whenever you’re being mistreated by police. They’re not taking note of your accent or your birthplace.”
Reid’s evaluation of the present political second is each sobering and instructive. She attracts a transparent distinction between Trump’s first and second phrases:
“The distinction between Trump 1.0 and Trump 2.0 is that Trump 2.0 has a plan. He’s surrounded by people who find themselves sycophants, tv hosts, characters… none of whom have the expertise to do the roles they’re doing. However he does even have a plan. And the plan is Mission 2025.”
Relating to talking reality to energy, Reid credit her upbringing.
“I’m my mom’s daughter. That girl was such an adventurer that in her 30s, she bought on a ship and went off to England by herself, bought her diploma there, got here to the USA by herself, after which helped convey her members of the family over.”
This fearless basis has carried Reid via her profession, even when going through skilled penalties.
“The worst factor that may occur for those who communicate out is what occurred to me at MSNBC. You lose your job,” Reid acknowledges. “However I additionally had the self-confidence, and I additionally had the privilege of the schooling I used to be in a position to achieve, that I do know I can land on my ft. I’m a author. I can all the time make a dwelling as a author.”
Reid’s evolution isn’t simply skilled—it’s deeply private. Her current choice to chop her hair brief and go blonde represents a journey towards genuine self-expression that many Black ladies in media can relate to.
“I lastly did it, and I like it, and it’s so enjoyable,” she says. “I feel we’ve been so sort of tormented about our hair as Black ladies, and our hair has all the time been political. It was unlawful for us to put on braids—or not unlawful, however folks might hearth you for sporting braids.”
“I undoubtedly had the anxiousness of, how is that this going to go over? You recognize, go over with my viewers. And so we give it some thought all.” However now Reid says she feels free.
The transition from company to unbiased media has allowed Reid to attach with audiences in new methods.
“What we’re studying, and what I feel the media infrastructure, the normal infrastructure, are studying, is that there’s an viewers for a lot of, for those who’ve developed your following. That viewers is yours. It’s gonna comply with you wherever you go.”
“We wish you to be told—since you’ve bought to know what’s happening—however we don’t need you to really feel despair,” Reid says, explaining her present’s mission. “We wish you to have a bit little bit of pleasure, and we additionally need you to really feel empowered. That after an hour of watching The Pleasure Reid Present, you come away pondering: I can argue with my Trumpy uncle. I’m able to vote, I’m prepared to maneuver, march—no matter I have to do. I’ve the knowledge I have to thrive, even on this surroundings.”
As Reid displays on Essence’s 55-year legacy, she connects her present journey to the journal’s foundational mission.
Essence has all the time been reasserting the sweetness and worth of Black ladies and Black women. “As a Black lady, all you noticed was Farrah Fawcett and white ladies in shampoo commercials and also you didn’t see us, however Essence is the place we noticed us.”
Now, via her unbiased platform, Reid continues that custom—creating house for Black voices, views and tales which may in any other case be marginalized. In an period of fast media transformation, she’s not simply adapting to alter; she’s serving to to outline what comes subsequent.
“What’s the purpose of getting that platform for those who can’t be a blessing to the world, for those who can’t communicate up for the individuals who don’t have the flexibility to talk, who don’t have the voice, who don’t have the platform?” Reid asks. “I really feel prefer it’s my duty.”
It’s a duty she’s embracing with attribute boldness, proving that generally probably the most highly effective factor you are able to do is just refuse to be silenced.
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