NEW YORK – January 14, 2015 – Today MSNBC announced its plans for live coverage and analysis of President Obama's State of the Union Address and the Republican response, beginning at 8 p.m. ET on Tuesday, January 20.
Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews will host the special programming, and will be joined by Chris Hayes, Reverend Al Sharpton, Kasie Hunt, Steve Kornacki and MSNBC contributors Steve Schmidt, Robert Gibbs, Michael Steele, Eugene Robinson, and Victoria DeFrancesco Soto. NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent and MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell, Ed Schultz and Luke Russert will report live from Washington DC and José Díaz-Balart will participate from Miami. Matthews will also anchor an additional live hour of coverage from 12 a.m. – 1 a.m. ET. In the days leading up to and after the address, msnbc.com correspondents will report on the event from communities across the country.
As part of MSNBC's focus on providing a more integrated viewer experience, its State of the Union coverage will also feature the first live-event analysis by MSNBC's new digital platform Shift, which will be hosted by Krystal Ball, Dorian Warren and Josh Barro. Consistent with its TV programming, Shift's coverage will kick off at 8 p.m. ET, and live-stream both the State of the Union and the Republican response at shift.msnbc.com. In the build up to the speech, MSNBC will offer a special look at the preparations for the big event; follow MSNBC's Instagram for an exclusive photo diary of the network's SOTU behind the scenes.
MSNBC will also ask its viewers to sound off on what they think the State of the Union is, using #SOTUis. Responses will be featured on msnbc.com and during Shift's special coverage.
At key points throughout the evening, MSNBC viewers will be able to share their reactions to the address by participating in voting opportunities that will be featured in real time both on-air and online. Through the use of Microsoft's Bing Pulse live voting technology, viewers will be able to log on to pulse.msnbc.com to vote on the issues they care about most.
Additional details on this special coverage will be provided in the coming days.