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Former NBC News and MSNBC anchor Brian Williams, whose career was upended by an embarrassing reporting scandal in 2015, is negotiating his first hosting gig in years with a live Amazon Prime election night event.
Variety reported Saturday that five people “familiar with the matter” have said Williams and Amazon are in “late-stage discussions” for Williams to host the platform’s first live news-related program. The report claimed the aim of the event “is to have a non-partisan discussion of that evening’s events.”
“Amazon’s Election Night special would likely have Williams relying heavily on the Associated Press to determine how candidates were faring state by state. The show would stream from a studio in the Los Angeles area, one of the people said, and could start as early as 5 p.m. eastern,” Variety reported.
Brian Williams was suspended and demoted by NBC News in 2015 after a series of embellished stories by the anchor came to light. He was reassigned to MSNBC, NBC’s left-wing cable arm. (Photo by: Heidi Gutman/MSNBC/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
The report continued, “Williams would be prepared to stay at the desk for as many as seven to eight hours — and potentially more. In the case of a close election in which results are too close to call, this person says, Williams would broadcast for as long as it might be sustainable.”
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Variety added the deal does not necessarily mean the platform will produce more news programming events.
“The show is aimed more toward explaining the news, this person says, rather than breaking individual pieces of it. Producers have lined up well-known names, this person adds, and was aided by the fact that many traditional TV-news competitors have trimmed the ranks of their contributors as economic pressures have weighed on them. The show, this person says, would aim to be big and accessible and offer a lot of famous guests,” Variety reported.
The Williams election night special would be Amazon Prime’s first live news event. (Photo by Bobby Bank/WireImage | Photo Illustration by Idrees Abbas/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Fox News Digital reached out to Amazon for comment.
In addition to its foray into politics, Amazon won exclusive rights last year to the NFL’s primetime Thursday Night Football broadcast.
Williams has not been on the air since formally leaving NBC in 2021, although he previously hinted at joining other networks.
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Williams anchored “NBC Nightly News” from 2004 until 2015, when his career was upended after he was suspended for six months for misrepresenting events he claimed occurred while covering the Iraq War.
Williams falsely claimed he was aboard a helicopter that was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade while in Iraq, but it turned out his aircraft was following the one that came under fire. Reports emerged in 2015 that an NBC News internal investigation had turned up several other instances where he fabricated or embellished his accounts.
The scandal tarnished his credibility and was a deep embarrassment to NBC News, which demoted him from the prestigious network anchor job. Lester Holt has held the position ever since.
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Williams was reassigned to MSNBC, NBC’s liberal cable arm, as a breaking news anchor, and he began hosting the nightly program “The 11th Hour” in 2016 until his departure in 2021.
Fox News’ Yael Halon contributed to this report.
