Ben Collins, a former NBC News reporter, declares victory over 'fake news' after years of battle.

As the CEO of satirical news website The Onion, former NBC News reporter Ben Collins stated that "disinformation has won" and he is not worried that his new job could promote fake news if someone takes a humorous headline seriously.

During an interview on WBUR, Collins stated, "My initial response is to exclaim, 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em,'"

"The Onion, ironically, has been the most correct paper of my lifetime. Despite being deeply unpopular in 2003, they were the first to call out the Iraq war. They have a steady moral compass and are also the funniest people I've ever met."

According to his old author page, Collins, who covered "disinformation, extremism and the internet for NBC News," did not conceal his left-wing political leanings and frequently expressed liberal views on social media while working as a reporter.

Collins stated that disinformation had won, leaving no other option,

At NBC, Collins was temporarily banned from covering Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter, known as X, due to his excessive criticism. He also expressed his anger over the reporting about the "Twitter Files," which exposed internal communications between Twitter employees regarding the decision to block the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop reporting in 2020. According to his comments to WBUR, the former journalist is still upset.

Collins stated that Musk effectively won the pipeline battle with Twitter, but subsequently transformed it into a bizarre, spammy bot website where falsehoods and conspiracy theories reigned supreme. Disinformation ultimately prevailed.

"Collins stated that the most effective way to combat in this particular instance is to utilize the language and terminology of disinformation, while still maintaining accuracy, in order to achieve our objectives."

In recent days, despite his previous opposition to X, Collins has been promoting it through Musk's platform, using The Onion.

In 2024, Collins threatened to leave journalism unless significant changes occurred, but he also hinted at his plans to publish "white whale stories" to conclude his career. Since then, he has only published one story, a critical piece on Musk's handling of X in October.

Between April 25, 2023 and April 25, 2024, Collins had only six articles with his byline published, the most recent one being over 200 days old. Despite this, he made several appearances on MSNBC during that time, though he had not been on-air since early January when he announced his new job.

Planet Chronicle Digital’s David Rutz contributed to this report.