MS NOW anchor Alex Witt closed out a 27-year run at the network on Sunday, September 6, 2026, with a tearful final sign-off that ended with her crew crowded around the anchor desk, clapping and chanting her name.
Witt, 65, came to the network in 1999, when it still went by MSNBC, and started her three-hour weekend afternoon program, “Alex Witt Reports,” in 2011. No anchor in the broadcaster’s history has held the job longer. She got her start in television news in 1990, with earlier stops at “Today” and WNYW-TV.
MS NOW President Rebecca Kutler informed staff in a memo in June that Witt had decided to end her time at the company, calling her “a continued, trusted, and steady presence for our audiences.” The network’s public relations team said she had anchored more hours than anyone in its history.
A Career Replayed in Tape
The broadcast built toward a career retrospective that ran about 15 minutes, stitching together footage of Witt on the air for the September 11 attacks, the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, the death of NBC reporter David Bloom in Iraq and the Pulse nightclub shooting. Over her years at the network, she also covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina, royal weddings and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Setting up the package, Witt reached for a line from the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”
With that thought in mind, she said, she wanted to pause alongside everyone watching and take stock of the events she had covered, the colleagues she had worked beside and a position that, over 27 years, had let her deliver what is often history’s first draft.
“Wow!” she said when the montage ended, before thanking the administrative, archives and production teams who assembled it.
Choking Up Over Her Producer
The anchor’s composure cracked when she turned to her longtime executive producer, Nick Kovijanic. A photograph of the two of them stayed on screen while she struggled to steady herself.
Through tears, Witt said Kovijanic was a champion who had gone to bat for her, for the program and for their team, and that she had never stopped learning from him. He had shaped both the way she approaches the news and the way she makes sense of the world, she added, and he had kept her on course throughout — a heading she vowed to keep facing.
“You guys have heard me talk about Nick so much,” she told viewers as the camera returned to her.
The Crew Joins Her at the Desk
Witt then waved her staff onto the set to stand with her on camera. “It takes a village. My village is here,” she said, thanking her studio crew and the technical crew in the control booth for the long hours they put in every weekend.
She then told the audience at home what an honor it had been to win their trust while delivering the news, and thanked them for a loyalty that had kept her in the anchor chair year after year, doing work she loves.
Several crew members grew emotional as Witt turned to her son and daughter, thanking them for putting up with the ways her weekend schedule shaped their lives. “I’m forever proud of you two, and love you till the end of time,” she said.
Then came the line itself. “That’s going to do it for me on this edition of Alex Witt Reports,” she said. “Enjoy your holidays!”
Passing the Baton to Antonia Hylton
The tributes had been piling up all afternoon, as a parade of guests and panelists used their segments to salute the anchor. Her successor in the timeslot, Antonia Hylton, was among them, and she interrupted to pay tribute. “You are one of one. You are the anchor’s anchor,” Hylton told Witt, describing her as the steady presence viewers turn to when the news is breaking, and the world feels uncertain. Witt returned the compliment, recalling that she had spotted Hylton’s talent early in her broadcasting career.
Tributes ran across MS NOW’s programming through the day, with colleagues including Jacob Soboroff, Katy Tur, Jonathan Capehart and Jackie Alemany marking the end of her run. MS NOW colleague Ken Dilanian called her a “calm, balanced, inquisitive presence on the air” on social media, and colleague Kelly O’Donnell praised her intelligence and composure through breaking news of every stripe.
Witt handed off her duties on the air to Hylton during the final broadcast. “The Assignment” debuts on Saturday, September 12, in the weekend slot Witt had occupied since 2011. Witt, for her part, is not disappearing from the network: she is slated to guest host across MS NOW’s daytime lineup for the remainder of the year.