Cox: NBC's fake-news foray could have real fallout

Last edited Sat Jun 17, 2017, 09:19 AM - Edit history (1)

Fri Jun 16, 2017 | 2:21pm EDT

By Rob Cox | NEW YORK

(Reuters Breakingviews) - Infowars came to my hometown three years ago. Dan Bidondi, who identified himself as a reporter for the website that hawks extremist views and fake news, arrived with a video camera at the municipal center of Newtown, Connecticut, to cover a routine Board of Education meeting. Bidondi wasn't interested in hearing how a New England hamlet of 27,000 was dealing with bus schedules or budget priorities.

Instead, he was there to give a man from Florida a platform upon which to express his delirious beliefs. Wolfgang Halbig and a bevy of followers, including a man clad in 18th-century patriot garb, showed up to bully community leaders into proving the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School actually occurred. Halbig had developed a following with calls to exhume the bodies of the 20 first-graders killed that day and release police photographs of the grisly crime scene.

On Sunday, Comcast's flagship network, NBC, will extend a similar courtesy to Infowars by airing a segment on Alex Jones, its founder and conspiracy theorist-in-chief. Megyn Kelly, the former Fox News anchor whom President Donald Trump accused of bleeding "from her wherever" when she challenged him during an election debate, interviewed Jones for her new prime-time program. It competes with CBS's vaunted, long-running newsmagazine "60 Minutes."

The decision unleashed a well-deserved backlash against NBC. Viewers are calling for boycotts. Petitions crawl across Facebook and Twitter demanding NBC withdraw the piece. JPMorgan Chase temporarily pulled advertisements, and others may follow. The furor forced Kelly to withdraw from a fundraiser on Wednesday for a charity led by parents who lost children at Sandy Hook, and one which I helped to found.

Just a few weeks into her tenure, Kelly – who had been offered $20 million to stay at Fox News, according to media reports – has put NBC, a business that generates $10 billion a year in revenue, into a pickle that could have commercial ramifications for its parent company. If the broadcaster forges ahead with a segment that serves to legitimize Jones, Infowars and the falsifications they peddle, sponsors may further withdraw their custom as more affluent and educated viewers flee.

more
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nbc-megynkelly-breakingviews-idUSKBN1972JQ