Photograph from MSNBC
This past spring, Steve Kornacki was named National Political correspondent for NBC News and MSNBC. Before, he was the adorable host of the Monday edition of Meet The Press Daily, and had his own show, the deliciously titled Up With Steve Kornacki, on Saturdays and Sunday early mornings.
Before stepping in front of the cameras, he worked as a journalist for the New York Observer, covered Congressional news for Roll Call, and was the politics editor for Salon. He has also contributed deeply-researched political pieces for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Boston Globe, and Daily Beast. He spent three years in New Jersey, chronicling the politics of the Garden State for a website and co-hosting a weekly show on News 12 New Jersey, a 24-hour cable news outfit.
Born Stephan Joseph Kornacki, in Groton, Massachusetts in 1979, he graduated from Boston University’s School of Communications.
He’s just one of a growing group of openly gay new anchors and reporters. when just a decade ago, it wouldn’t have seemed possibly to be a major media figure and be out of the closet. Today we have: CNN Business anchor Richard Quest; Robin Roberts of Good Morning, America; MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts; ABC’s Dan Kloeffler; managing editor of Fox News’ Breaking News Division, Shepard Smith; Ari Shapiro of NPR; LZ Granderson of ESPN, NBC Justice correspondent Pete Williams; plus, the Holy Trinity of Rachel Maddow, Don Lemon, and Anderson Cooper.
Kornacki is a political geek who loves sports. He is maybe not as hunky as Thomas Roberts or as beautiful and daring as Anderson Cooper, but he is exactly the sort of nice, handsome, clean-cut boy you could bring home to meet the folks.
Kornacki:
“Most people used to be exposed to only a select cross-section of gay people. But, the atmosphere has changed so much, and so quickly.”
Kornacki came out of the closet in an essay that he wrote for Salon in November 2011. Among his observations in the piece, Kornacki wrote:
“I was the All-American kid, or so I told myself, good grades, never in trouble, bright future, well-respected by my peers. After a trip to Cape Cod with a friend and his family, the kid’s mother said her favorite moment was watching ‘straitlaced Steve’ struggling to make sense of all the hedonism around him when we drove out to Provincetown. I remember seeing drag queens and men dressed in skimpy attire and thinking to myself, Get me out of here so I can watch a baseball game.”
After graduating from BU in 2001, Kornacki moved to Los Angles with the crazy notion of making money as a perennial contestant on game shows, one of his biggest obsessions. After failing to land a gig on any of his favorite shows, he returned to the Northeast and found work writing copy for a regional television news. He also booked guest appearances on the cable news shows that caught the attention of the execs at MSNBC. By 2011, he was a regular pundit on The Rachel Maddow Show and The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell.
Just was his career was really taking off, Kornacki fell hard for a guy, but wasn’t ready to tell the world. The coming out piece for Salon was a way to tell all and an audacious attempt to salvage a romance that was falling apart from the burden of a life in the closet. He came out to his parents first, by giving them a copy of the article before it went live online.
Besides his expanded roll on MSNBC, he has a book on 1990s U.S. Political History that will be published later this year.
At 6’ 2’’, with perfect skin and perfect teeth, and just that perfect dash of wonkiness, I think Kornacki is a real dreamboat. He is our Monday Mancrush. And, boys, Kornacki is single.
