Steve Kornacki has been named the new
host of MSNBC's weekend roundtable show Up, making him the
network's third openly gay host.
Kornacki replaces Chris Hayes, who is
leaving the show for primetime.
“We want to try to work with the
template they've created,” Kornacki told The
Hollywood Reporter. “Obviously, I'm not Chris, Chris isn't
me. I can't be a carbon copy of him. If I tried to be, I'd fail, the
show would fail. They'll be some differences, but they'll sort of
evolve.”
Kornacki, also the senior political
writer for Salon.com, came out publicly two years ago, writing at
Salon.com that he feared coming out to friends.
“In a way, I can't even explain why I
kept this part of myself private for so long. But whenever I would
contemplate a change, I would think back to my youth, and the
fathers, teachers and coaches who had been my adult role models, all
of them old-fashioned family men. How could I possibly be so
different?” he
wrote.
Much fanfare surrounded the 2008 debut
of The Rachel Maddow Show, whose host, Rachel Maddow, was
first openly gay anchor of a major primetime news program. Thomas
Roberts, who
married his partner last year, is an MSNBC weekday morning host.