MSNBC’s Brian Williams warned this week that fake news has serious consequences, including that it helped sway the presidential election in Donald Trump’s favor.
As a reminder, Williams is no longer a network news anchor because he’s still rehabilitating his tarnished image. He was disciplined last year after it was revealed he had embellished stories and peddled outright falsehoods regarding his experiences in 2003 during the U.S. invasion of Iraq. His stories about his time in New Orleans during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina also proved to contain fabrications.
Williams’ comments about fake news came Wednesday as he remarked on Ret. Gen. Mike Flynn’s son and his penchant for passing along conspiracy theories, including one that alleges pizzerias are being used as a front for a massive international child trafficking ring.
“Another former general in the Trump circle is receiving new attention,” Williams began. “His National Security Adviser-designate, Mike Flynn. Flynn’s son was fired by the Trump transition today for passing on fake news story via Twitter. But his dad, the retired Army three-star general has passed on some gems himself.”
“Here are a few: ‘Clinton is involved in child sex trafficking and has secretly waged war on the Catholic Church.’ As well as charges that the president is a ‘jihadi’ who ‘laundered’ money for terrorists,” the anchor added. “As we talked about here last night, fake news played a role in the election and continues to find a wide audience. A BuzzFeed news study of Donald Trump’s own tweets where they followed back news stories to their root source found more of them came from Breitbart originally than any other single source.”
Williams was suspended for six months without pay in 2015 after NBC News learned of his history of peddling false stories and fabricated anecdotes. When he was eventually put back on the air, he was removed from the network division and placed on cable.
