Participant Media-owned social-action programmer Pivot said author Baratunde Thurston has joined the cast of weeknightly news program TakePart Live as the third co-host, with Jacob Soboroff and Meghan McCain.

Thurston, who has been a frequent guest on the show, is CEO and co-founder of the digital storytelling and marketing site Cultivated Wit, author of the best-selling book How To Be Black and a prolific keynote speaker. He also is former politics editor at The Onion and founded the black political blog Jack & Jill Politics.

TakePart Live (10 p.m. ET/7p.m. PT) is produced by Embassy Row. It originally debuted in August 2013, with Soboroff and Cara Santa Maria as hosts. It relaunched this past May with Soboroff, McCain and Eddie Huang as hosts, but Huang left after several weeks.