Before President Trump’s State of the Union address in January, MSNBC host Brian Williams teed up a night of heavy coverage. “As I said, our entire team of correspondents will analyze what we see and hear. We’ll fact-check it on the fly, as well,” said Williams.
NewsBusters, a site run by the conservative Media Research Center that binge-watches MSNBC and other mainstream outlets, had some fun with the irony. “Hilarious! Disgraced Brian Williams Claims: ‘We Will Fact Check’ State of the Union,” read the headline. The irony, of course, springs from Williams’s broadcasting past. Before his demotion to a host at MSNBC, he was the anchor of “NBC Nightly News,” a stint during which he told several exaggerated or fabricated stories about his reportorial exploits in far-off locales.
These days he hosts the “The 11th Hour with Brian Williams” on weeknights on MSNBC.
Now MSNBC’s credibility problem is seeping into the weekends. Via Joy Reid, that is. In one of the more bizarre media stories of recent years, Reid apologized in December for some old homophobic posts from her closed-down blog. People forgave her. When more posts surfaced this spring, however, she claimed that she was the victim of hacking, hired a cybersecurity analyst and a lawyer, and even brought the matter to the FBI. Those hacking claims collapsed under scrutiny. On her April 28 show, Reid apologized again and acknowledged that her team had been unable to prove her hacking claims, though she failed to disavow them. “I genuinely do not believe I wrote those hateful things, because they are completely alien to me,” Reid said. “But I can definitely understand, based on things I have tweeted and have written in the past, why some people don’t believe me. I’ve not been exempt from being dumb or cruel or hurtful to the very people I want to advocate for. I own that. I get it. And for that, I am truly, truly sorry.”
Round 3 happened last week. There were more excavated Reid posts of yore, stuff about 9/11 truthers and some nastiness about Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). So Reid issued an apology, and MSNBC a statement supporting her. Both of those releases omitted any mention of the hacking claims. What was up with the FBI investigation? Is Team Reid still evaluating time stamps and blog archives?
The non-answers to those inquiries have placed the debate right on top of Reid’s credibility. “How could you just bury that? I mean, then that was a lie,” noted CNN’s Pamela Brown in a Saturday segment on the matter.
We’ve asked MSNBC for a status check on the hacking claims. No response as of yet. Two considerations will ensure this issue’s durability. One is the FBI referral. On April 25, MSNBC released a statement attributed to lawyer John H. Reichman: “We have received confirmation the FBI has opened an investigation into potential criminal activities surrounding several online accounts, including personal email and blog accounts, belonging to Joy-Ann Reid. Our own investigation and monitoring of the situation will continue in parallel, and we are cooperating with law enforcement as their investigation proceeds.” Did Reid bog down the FBI with a nothingburger — or is this thing still on?
And the other consideration is the biggest credibility story in modern memory. The Post’s tally of false or misleading statements by President Trump reached 3,251 as of June 1. While there are other issues at which to tilt at in this presidency — immigration, trade, jobs, the First Amendment — deception colors all of them.
Reid anchors four hours of weekend programming on “AM Joy” — two each on Saturday and Sunday. Combined with the Brian Williams factor, that means that there are nine hours (excluding re-runs) of MSNBC weekly programming that are ill-suited to face down the No. 1 political issue in the United States.