Colin Jost, who currently co-anchors Saturday Night Live’s “Weekend Update” with Michael Che, is no longer the long-running show’s head writer.
Jost quietly stepped down from the role and NBC never announced the change. It wasn’t even noticed until Splitsider today posted screenshots of the credits from this week’s episode with Tracy Morgan as host. Rob Klein and Bryan Tucker were listed as the head writers and the credits were also changed at NBC.com.
Vanity Fair notes that the last time Jost was credited as co-head writer was at the end of last season’s finale, which was hosted by Louis C.K. Jost, Klein and Tucker shared the head writer credit.
Jost took the head writer job after Seth Meyers left. As EW notes, Jost has been on the show since season 31 and was made head writer for season 38.
There’s some speculation that Jost left the head writer post to focus on “Weekend Update,” which has gotten significantly better in the second season of the Jost/Che era. Considering this season also has an election to play with, focusing on turning the news into jokes is probably a good idea.