Alex Wagner Getting Martin Bashir’s MSNBC Timeslot: Report

Alex Wagner is getting Martin Bashir’s 4 PM ET timeslot starting next month. Wagner has hosted the network’s noon panel-format program “Now” since November 2011 and the move opens up that timeslot, noted TVNewser, which first reported the move.  The network’s recently added anchor Ronan Farrow is scheduled to start in January but he has yet to be given an announced timeslot.

Bashir resigned earlier this month after the drumbeat failed to die down when he apologized for having suggested, on air, that someone might defecate in Sarah Palin’s mouth, when she likened the country’s debt to China to slavery, because an infamous slave owner used to punish his slaves in that manner.  “Upon further reflection, and after meeting with the president of MSNBC, I have tendered my resignation,” Bashir said in an email. “It is my sincere hope that all of my colleagues, at this special network, will be allowed to focus on the issues that matter without the distraction of myself or my ill-judged comments.”