NBC News Senior Correspondent Ben Collins has repeatedly and openly criticized Elon Musk and his work with Twitter, raising questions about whether he can report objectively on the subject.
According to the NBC News website, the left-leaning Collins covers “disinformation, extremism and the Internet.” He describes his work in his Twitter bio as covering the “dystopian beat,” and Collins has emerged as the chief antagonist of Musk’s Twitter leadership, denouncing him repeatedly in television appearances and on his own social media.
NBC News recently reported: “Twitter executives eye departures, including head of trust and security as Musk’s chaotic reign continues,” “Musk fires Twitter engineers after critical posts on Twitter and Slack” and “Should I delete my messages? Twitter is what you have and what you can and can’t do about it,” or Collins wrote or contributed to them.
However, while NBC News claims to be an unbiased source of reliable information, Collins has made no secret of his disdain for Musk, his disdain for the media, his explorations of political correctness, and the internet’s right-wing his relationships made him a villain. on the left. On Tuesday night, Collins poked fun at the Tesla mogul as he announced that he had recently hired a former FBI attorney as an in-house counsel ahead of Twitter’s acquisition of the tech giant.
NBC News Senior Correspondent Ben Collins discusses layoffs at Twitter led by Elon Musk on November 4, 2022.
(MSNBC)
Left-Wing NBC Correspondent BEN COLLINS CRUSHED FOR ‘MELTING’ ON ‘TWITTER FILES’: ‘I Hope You Get Well’
“The scandal here is that Elon Musk found out who his company’s deputy general counsel was six weeks after he bought it,” Collins tweeted.
When journalist Matt Taibbi wrote about the “Twitter files” on Friday, Collins derided him for being “disrespectful” for doing “PR work for the richest man in the world.” It is noteworthy that many other figures of the left wing were used almost the same language attacking Toibbi, which did not go unnoticed by the journalist.
“I’m looking forward to going through all the tweets complaining about ‘PR for the richest man on earth’ and seeing how many of them are spreading stories for anonymous sources in the FBI, CIA, Pentagon, White House, etc.,” Taibbi said.
But that wasn’t the only tweet he made about the “Twitter files.” Collins, a frequent guest on hard-left MSNBC shows such as Joy Reid, spent much of the evening attacking Musk and Taibbi.
Twitter profile picture of NBC News Senior Correspondent Ben Collins.
(Ben Collins/Twitter)
An NBC News reporter was ripped for “narcissism” as he made his headlines blaming conservatives for the shooting.
“Elon Musk paid $44 billion to discover what we already know: content moderation is messy and involves entire communities of people with different viewpoints trying to appease different political factions,” Collins wrote in a tweet. Another posted: “Elon Musk’s Twitter files show that content moderation on Twitter is decided by a team of people with different viewpoints. Now the richest man on Earth is giving it to one political party he decides to strike. – a real scandal.”
Collins also said that Musk is “learning the hard way what information researchers have known for decades: everyone is a free speech advocate. if you manage, you will eventually face your turn. .”
On Sunday, Collins shared comments dismissing the “Twitter Files,” which Nicholas Grossman called a “marketing ploy” and “did the opposite” of uncovering a political scandal.
NBC News’ Ben Collins discusses Twitter’s blue check verification process under Elon Musk on Nov. 11, 2022.
(MSNBC)
District Media Group President Beverly Hollberg, who spoke about why liberals are so worried about Musk’s takeover of Twitter, is shocked that Collins would show so much animosity toward the man he was tasked with covering.
According to Hallberg, the “Twitter Files” are coming to light for two reasons: it brings attention to corruption within the company, as well as to journalists who are willing to look the other way.
“They show efforts by Twitter officials to remove any mention of Hunter Biden’s laptop, and they also reveal how the liberal establishment’s public affairs department reached out to alleged journalists who carried out talking point orders.” , said Hollberg.
“Ben Collins is supposed to be reporting the news, but he’s making a point and attacking real journalism in the process. It’s a shame that he’s so bold in showing his true colors, and it speaks to how dim the media elite have become. they don’t even realize their bias,” said Hollberg.
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Since April 2022, when Musk expressed interest in buying Twitter, Collins has been criticizing the billionaire at every turn.
Collins mocked Musk for suspending impersonating accounts, mockingly suggested Musk “invented” vetting and content moderation, criticized Twitter firings, suggested funding Musk’s takeover of Twitter was dishonest caught and mocked Musk for losing advertisers.
On the evening of November 17th, Collins appeared to have won the day when leftists around Twitter panicked that the site was expected to crash later that day due to employee walkouts. “I said it! Bye everyone,” she wrote.
A day later, Collins backtracked, writing: “For what it’s worth, I don’t think there’s going to be a big, ‘The Day After Tomorrow’-style, apocalyptic moment where Twitter ends.”
Earlier, he said Musk was “out of his depth, objectively” on Twitter and that Election Day 2022 would be a “nightmare” because Musk had destroyed his moderator staff.
“It could be really bad,” he said on MSNBC on Nov. 4.
FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver derided his doomsday speech as “absolutely false,” while the two clashed online later that month.
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In October, Collins quipped, “Elon, have you ever considered that maybe people disagree with you and that until recently you’ve been living in a well-sealed bubble to harass the Yes Men?”
That month, he wrote: “Long term, Musk’s plans for this website are a suicide bomb. Very few people want to use an unmoderated app that’s saturated with lies by design. We know that from dozens of Twitter clones.” . tried and failed, but it seems he’s tired of getting bad advice from bad people.”
Collins has even tweeted directly at Musk on several occasions, and recently used a cartoon mocking people who think they know better than the experts.
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In August, Musk wrote that population decline due to low birth rates was a greater threat to civilization than global warming, and Collins simply replied, “No, it’s not.” In September, Collins used the “Titanic” meme to promote Musk’s suggestion that cybertrucks could one day serve as boats.
NBC News executives did not immediately respond when asked if Collins could properly cover Musk and Twitter. NBC News also did not respond to a question about whether there was a problem with Collins speaking directly about the subject he covered.
Collins only expresses his opinion on matters related to Musk. Last month, after the Colorado Springs shooting, he gave a dramatic speech on MSNBC about his right-wing rhetoric about the LGBTQ community, saying that all five victims felt safe only at the gay club where they were killed. emphasized with ‘z.
“Because there are five dead people in a strip mall, because it was the only place in this city of Colorado Springs where they felt safe as gay or trans people,” he said.
Collins’ speech was derided by media critics, including Substack writer Jesse Singal.
“Ben Collins is putting words in their mouths and thoughts in their heads. He’s actually talking. on Recently, the victims of the murder only to make a political point and increase the importance of his particular strike. That’s the only way to describe it,” Singal wrote.
Collins also said she was criticized by the right-wing media in her speech because she wanted transgender people to “stay alive”.
Collins did not respond to a request for comment.
Fox News’ Gabriel Hayes and Nicholas Lanum contributed to this report.