Joy Reid has come under scrutiny in the past after a series of homophobic writings were found on her now-deleted blog. (Photo by Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images)
Reporter Joy Reid is back in hot water this week after more incendiary posts were found on her now-defunct blog, the same blog she said was compromised by hackers who authored several homophobic posts on the site earlier this year.
Reid, the host of MSNBC’s AMJoy, has apologized once again after BuzzFeed News on Wednesday unearthed a 2006 post encouraging readers to watch “Loose Change,” an infamous 9/11 conspiracy documentary suggesting the attack on the Twin Towers was planned by the U.S. government.
On Thursday, the news site dug up another inflammatory blog post, this time involving Arizona Sen. John McCain (R). The post featured a photo of McCain’s face superimposed onto the body of Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 27 people in the 2007 campus attack. The writing, titled “Baghdad John Strikes Again,” also noted an infamous claim from McCain that he would “follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell.”
Reid’s latest apology for the posts didn’t mention or blame hackers,, however.
“… There are things I deeply regret and am embarrassed by, things I would have said differently and issues where my position has changed,” she said in a statement Friday. “Today I’m sincerely apologizing again.”
The on-air host said she also reached out and apologized to the senator’s daughter, Meghan McCain, who called the decade-old posts, “beyond disgusting and disrespectful.”
“I’m a better person today than I was over a decade ago,” Reid continued.
MSNBC also made a statement addressing the controversy, saying Reid’s old blog posts weren’t “reflective” the colleague they’ve grown to know and love over the last seven years.
“Joy has apologized publicly and privately and said she has grown and evolved in the many years since, and we know this to be true,” the network stated.
Things began to unravel for the popular news anchor in December after a Twitter user dug up the first of her homophobic posts, The New York Times reported. Reid apologized for the offensive posts then, but her tone shifted in April when several more anti-gay posts surfaced on her blog.The writings included everything from defending homophobic behavior to outwardly mocking gay people and homosexuality.
Reid claimed her blog was “breached” and said the posts were put up there by an “external party” that “manipulated material from my now-defunct blog.” She offered another apology on air after the Wayback Machine, a platform that preserves over two decades of internet history, found no evidence that her blog was compromised by hackers.
“I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things, because they are completely alien to me,” Reid said.
