MSNBC opens daytime hours for breaking news; Brian Williams will helm

MSNBC will be the platform for former “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams' reentry to TV news after he served a six-month suspension. Above, Williams in 2009. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)If you want to know the future look of MSNBC, take a look at its past.

The network's selling points when it launched in 1996 was the power of NBC News on cable and an up-and-coming anchor named Brian Williams.

Nearly 20 years later, Williams will be at the forefront of an effort to make the channel a destination when news happens in daytime. NBC News on-air correspondents, a less frequent presence on MSNBC in recent years as the channel added more politically progressive talking heads, will play a…