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From fabulous to fabulism … and back again? 

Nine years ago, NBC News anchor Brian Williams lost his gig in disgrace after his serial fabulism made its way into news reporting. Lester Holt ascended to the anchor and managing editor desk as a result and has held onto it ever since. Williams’ career came to a halt after NBC News began investigating a “dossier of lies” told on-air and off by Williams over the years, including two tall tales about helicopters, another one about Hurricane Katrina, and more. The list of posts here detailing Williams’ fabulism goes on so long that I’ll just link the search results. 

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Now, however, Amazon wants to get into the Election Night coverage game. And who better to anchor it than the man who once parachuted into a tank with Michael Dukakis? I kid, I kid … sorta:

Amazon said Thursday it plans to host an election night special anchored by Brian Williams, marking the company’s first foray into live news coverage.

The one-night special will provide election results and analysis on Prime Video starting at 5 p.m. ET on Nov. 5, the company said. Amazon emphasized it will be a “non-partisan presentation” pulling information from a variety of third-party news sources.

Oddly enough, NBC News never mentions this part of Williams’ career, not even their own decision to punish him “severely” for his fabulism. They only mention that Williams “left NBC News in 2021 after a 28-year-run.” That’s true as far as it goes; they kept Williams around on MSNBC for a while after suspending him for six months without pay, but it was a very uncomfortable arrangement. 

The Associated Press also goes out of its way to give Williams a whitewashed CV:

As anchor of “NBC Nightly News” from 2004 to 2015, Williams led the network’s election night coverage. He later went to work at MSNBC as anchor and host of his own late-night news program, which he left in 2021.

There’s something in the middle of all that, though. Perhaps one can understand why NBC didn’t want to rehash it, but why would the AP avoid it? Or for that matter, ABC News? Deadline has to have the juicy stuff in their story, though. Right? Wrong. 

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Doesn’t it seem passingly odd that Amazon and Jeff Bezos would choose Williams to host this special, even perhaps without this scandal? Williams is old news in more ways than one.  Bezos owns the Washington Post, after all; he has talent on the staff and among the columnists that could do the job. That would also have given some synergy to the effort, not to mention lend the WaPo’s political-reporting legacy as added gravitas to this new venture. That seems especially strange when considering the scandal, because the reputational impact will cut both ways. Does anyone wonder what the folks at the Post think about their new partner in the Bezos universe?

Anyway, it should be an interesting night for those who don’t care much about accuracy and reliability. Maybe Amazon can line up Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair as contributors.