Brian Williams will not return to his role at NBC Nightly News but instead join the cable news network MSNBC to cover breaking news.
The anchor was suspended in February after reports that he had embellished his recollections about the Iraq war.
Lester Holt, who had been filling in during Brian Williams’ suspension, will take over the slot permanently.
He becomes the first African-American man to lead a top evening news program.
Brian Williams said of viewers on June 18: “I’m determined to earn back their trust.”
He is scheduled to appear on the Today show on June 19 to further explain his new role.
Brian Williams, who was the face of NBC’s Nightly News since 2004, often spoke on chats shows of being shot down in a helicopter in Iraq.
But in early 2015, veterans who were aboard the helicopter began refuting his account over social media. Brian Williams and the network were forced to apologize.
“I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago,” Brian Williams said in February.
“I want to apologize. I said I was travelling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] fire. I was instead in a following aircraft.”
An internal NBC investigation found Brian Williams may have embellished other stories.
Brian Williams had signed a five-year contract in 2014 before the scandal.
For the past few weeks, Brian Williams and NBC Universal – the network’s corporate parent – have been negotiating new terms for the embattled newsman.
Alec Baldwin defended Martin Bashir on Twitter late Wednesday and had some harsh words for MSNBC after the journalist’s resignation.
“I wish @MartinBashir the best of luck,” Alec Baldwin wrote.
“Some of these cable venues really are Off-Off Television.”
“And their need for a reliable, even forced, homogeneity is more apparent than ever.”
Alec Baldwin defended Martin Bashir on Twitter and had some harsh words for MSNBC after the journalist’s resignation
Alec Baldwin, whose own MSNBC show Up Late was canceled two weeks ago after the actor was caught on camera using a gay slur, said Martin Bashir’s career shouldn’t have been ruined by one transgression.
“Broadcasters on certain networks are called upon to offer analysis of events and public policy, day in, day out, often with tremendous aggression and scalding language,” Alec Baldwin wrote.
“If, over the course of hundreds of hours on air, they commit a foul… then it’s like high-sticking in hockey or a late hit in the NFL. Throw a flag. But to end someone’s job?”
Martin Bashir resigned from the network Wednesday following flap over comments he made on air criticizing former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
Martin Bashir has resigned from MSNBC after controversial remarks about former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin.
In November, Martin Bashir referred to Sarah Palin, a Republican, as a “world-class idiot”, then suggested she “eat f**ces”.
Martin Bashir has since called his remarks – about her comparison of the US national debt to chattel slavery – “ill-judged”.
The British journalist joined MSNBC three years ago as a daytime chat show host.
“Martin is a good man and respected colleague – we wish him only the best,” MSNBC president Phil Griffin wrote in a statement announcing the decision on Wednesday.
Martin Bashir later released his own statement saying he had offered his resignation after a meeting with Phil Griffin and upon “further reflection” of his remarks.
Martin Bashir has resigned from MSNBC after controversial remarks about Sarah Palin
“It is my sincere hope that all of my colleagues… will be allowed to focus on the issues that matter without the distraction of myself,” he wrote.
“I deeply regret what was said, will endeavor to work hard at making constructive contributions in the future and will always have a deep appreciation for our viewers.”
Martin Bashir’s fall from grace follows comments he made on air on November 15.
“America’s resident dunce Sarah Palin scraping the barrel of her long-deceased mind and using her all-time favorite analogy in an attempt to sound intelligent about the national debt,” he said on MSNBC.
“Given her well-established reputation as a world-class idiot, it’s hardly surprising that she should choose to mention slavery in a way that is abominable to anyone who knows anything about its abominable history.”
Martin Bashir then suggested she eat f**ces, which he described as a punishment for wayward slaves.
Martin Bashir later apologized to Sarah Palin and network viewers for his “deeply offensive” comments.
Microsoft is abandoning the joint venture that owned MSNBC.com after 16 years, freeing the world’s largest software maker to build its own online news service.
One of the factors behind the split was apparently Microsoft’s fears that the website was being seen as too left-wing, and the software giant’s desire to present “multiple perspectives” in its news coverage.
The breakup announced late on Sunday dissolves the final shreds of a 16-year marriage between Microsoft Corp. and NBC News, which is now owned by Comcast Corp. The relationship began to unwind in 2005 when Microsoft sold its stake in MSNBC’s cable TV channel to NBC.
NBC is buying Microsoft’s 50% interest in the MSNBC website for an undisclosed amount. MSNBC.com will be rebranded as NBCNews.com, and readers who logged into MSNBC.com late on Sunday were automatically redirected to NBCNews.com.
The website will move its headquarters from Microsoft’s corporate campus in Redmond, Washington, to NBC News’ longtime home in New York.
Microsoft is abandoning the joint venture that owned MSNBC.com after 16 years
The online divorce stemmed from the two partners’ desire to gain greater control over their digital destinies as the Internet becomes an increasingly important part of their businesses.
The inherent constraints of being locked into a joint venture sometimes handcuffed Microsoft and NBC.
Microsoft, in particular, had grown frustrated by contract terms requiring it to exclusively feature MSNBC.com content on its own websites. That exasperation was exacerbated by the MSNBC cable channel’s strategy to counter Fox News Channel’s appeal to conservative viewers by tailoring its programming for an audience with a liberal viewpoint.
The strategy fed a perception that material from MSNBC’s website was also politically slanted.
“Being limited to MSNBC.com content was problematic to us because we couldn’t have the multiple news sources and the multiple perspectives that our users were telling us that they wanted,” said Bob Visse, general manager of MSN.com.
Now that it has shed those shackles, Microsoft is preparing to launch its own news service this fall. Although he declined to provide many details about the operation, Visse said the news staff will be about the same size as the roughly 100 people who created original content for the MSNBC.com.
By hiring its own news staff to feed material to its websites, Microsoft is embracing the same strategy as the owners of two other major Internet companies, Yahoo Inc. and AOL Inc.
Microsoft has leaned on its lucrative franchise selling personal computer software to pay for massive Internet investments that have rarely paid off, much to the frustration of its shareholders. The software maker initially invested $220 million in the MSNBC joint venture. It’s unclear if Microsoft ended up making any money on the alliance. As a whole, the company’s online operations, which include the Bing search engine and MSN portal, have lost more than $10 billion in the past seven years.
Even as it sets out to compete against NBC News, Microsoft will continue to highlight the top stories from its former partner for the next two years under terms of the split.
NBC News, in turn, believes it will be able to attract more traffic to its stable of websites by forging other partnerships that were off limits when it was tied to Microsoft.
“There is no question that we are going to have more flexibility to make our own decisions,” said Vivian Schiller, NBC News’ chief digital officer.
“This is really an amicable breakup. We think competition will make us better.”
MSNBC.com and its affiliated sites ranked as the Internet’s fourth most popular site for general news in the U.S., with nearly 50 million visitors in June, up 5% from last year, according to the research firm comScore Inc.
Yahoo’s recently formed alliance with ABC News topped the charts with 81 million visitors, followed by AOL/Huffington Post, and CNN.
As part of its online restructuring, NBC News plans to create a new online destination for the MSNBC cable channel’s personalities next year.
Although it will be based in New York, NBCNews.com will retain a significant staff in the Seattle area, according to Schiller. About 170 of MSNBC.com’s 300 employees worked in the Seattle area.
Microsoft is letting NBCNews.com remain in its Redmond office while it looks for a new location in the area.
MSNBC broadcaster Chris Hayes has caused outrage on Memorial Day by saying he feels “uncomfortable” branding soldiers who have died in battle “heroes”.
Chris Hayes, a liberal commentator who hosts Up with Chris Hayes, said the word “heroes” is used to justify further war.
His stuttered comments have sparked outrage among veterans organizations and across the internet.
Chris Hayes said: “I think it is very difficult to talk about the war dead and the fallen without invoking valor, without invoking the words <<heroes>>.
“I feel… uncomfortable, about the word because it seems to me that it is so rhetorically proximate to justifications for more war.”
He went on: “I don’t want to obviously desecrate or disrespect memory of anyone that’s fallen, and obviously there are individual circumstances in which there is genuine, tremendous heroism: hail of gunfire, rescuing fellow soldiers and things like that.
“But it seems to me that we marshal this word in a way that is problematic.”
He then added: “But maybe I’m wrong about that.”
Chris Hayes has caused outrage on Memorial Day by saying he feels “uncomfortable” branding soldiers who have died in battle “heroes
A spokesman for a veterans organization, Veterans of Foreign Wars, suggested Chris Hayes put himself through the anguish of war before criticizing soldiers.
“If Mr. Hayes feels uncomfortable, I suggest he enlist, go to war, then come home to what he expects is a grateful nation but encounters the opposite,” Joe Davis told The Daily Caller.
“It’s far too easy to cast stones from inexperience.”
Bloggers and users of social networking sites also condemned the comments, with “Chris Hayes” trending on Twitter after the broadcast.
Newsbusters blogger Mark Finkelstein said Chris Hayes’s stuttered speech “almost seems a parody of the conflicted intellectual”.
“What does it say about the liberal chattering class, which Hayes epitomizes, that it chokes on calling America’s fallen what they rightly and surely are: heroes?”
Conservative commentator Warner Todd Huston wrote on blog Wizbang: “I’d like to remind you that many of those Neanderthals that you despise so much died for your right to hate them.”
“Fire Chris Hayes!” one Twitter user wrote on the site.
“His outright DISDAIN for our valiant men and women is disgusting!”
Chris Hayes, who has never served in the armed forces, has hosted his weekend show on MSNBC since last September.
He has appeared as a guest host and commentator on shows including The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell and The Rachel Maddow Show.
Chris Hayes also remains Editor-at-Large of the left-leaning The Nation.
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