Hardball,

Yesterday, NBC executives named John Reiss, former executive producer of The NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, as the EP of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews. His first day at the new job was Tuesday.

On Friday, the Media Mob caught up with Mr. Reiss via phone. Mr. Reiss said that working at Nightly News had been great because he got to do a little bit of everything, but that he was excited to start focusing more on politics. "It was like being in school where you take lots and lots of classes," said Mr. Reiss. "Now I'm concentrating on my major. Politics was always my favorite subject."

In recent years, while at Nightly News, Mr. Reiss had reportedly fallen out of favor with anchor Brian Williams. He seemed enthusiastic about the fresh start.  read more »