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Hemingway: Brian Williams Gives MSNBC Credibility Boost

NBC says Brian Williams will move to MSNBC. Harsh punishment, perhaps. But it gives him a chance to prove himself while also helping MSNBC’s reputation.

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In a discussion with FOX News’ Steve Doocy on Monday, Federalist Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway said placing disgraced NBC news anchor at MSNBC was the perfect solution. Brian Williams gets a chance to prove he can be trusted again, MSNBC gets a much-needed credibility boost, and NBC doesn’t completely lose out on a $50-million contract.

Hemingway said:

Well you have to remember they had a pretty big problem on their hands. They had just signed a 5-year, $50 million contract with him, just in December. And assuming that he couldn’t make it to Saturday Night Live or something, they had to figure out a way to unload him.

I mean cutting him loose would just be a huge loss of money and if they negotiated their way out of the contract, they might have a loose cannon on their hands. And here they have a situation where both parties benefit. MSNBC needs a boost of credibility and Brian Williams needed a chance to show that he could be trusted again. And I know you think, “MSNBC and credibility? Brian Williams doesn’t seem very credible.” But when you’re a network that has Al Sharpton on every day, he actually is a much-needed credibility boost.

While Brian Williams’ credibility problems are well known, Hemingway argued that the rest of the media have similar problems they get away with:

But the thing is that Brian Williams lied to make himself look better, and I think a lot of us are frustrated that we see a lot of mainstream journalists exaggerating and distorting facts to make average Americans look worse and the values that we hold. Yeah, Brian Williams deserves punishment but a lot of journalists have hurt civil discourse worse than he has.