from NNDB.com
Per Variety:MSNBC's Rita Cosby, rumored for a while to be on the outs at the network, is leaving MSNBC to "pursue other interests," according to MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines. Word on the street has been that her contract, which was to expire on April 1, 2007, wasn't going to be renewed. Cosby confirmed it in a statement, noting that her show, "Rita Cosby Live and Direct," was supplanted this summer by the late-primetime "Doc Blocks" and that there hadn't really been anything else for her at the network (paraphrasing here, but that's essentially it). Cosby, whose last day is March 31st, said she was "committed to devoting my attention full-time to my work and obligations at the network" until then; she has done so recently with scoops in the all-important Anna Nicole Smith case, gaining exclusive access to her funeral in Bahamas. Hey, it was a scoop.
Here's a funny coincidence: Back in June 2005 when Cosby was welcomed aboard at MSNBC from Fox by then-president Rick Kaplan, Kaplan pulled the oddly passive-aggressive move of adding a poster of Cosby to the rest of the MSNBC anchors in the foyer of Seacaucus headquarters. In order to do so, he moved the poster of Dan Abrams to a side corridor. Then Kaplan was fired from MSNBC, replaced as president by...Dan Abrams. This week, Kaplan was named the new EP of the "CBS Evening News" and his former literal poster girl, Rita Cosby, is out on the street. The 24-hour news cycle works in mysterious ways.
