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NBC Universal tried to save Brian Williams’ job last night—and that’s why he was suspended for six months. The company finally had to stop the bleeding, to halt the hemorrhaging of its own credibility along with that of its franchise player. The brass slowly came to realize that Williams had to be punished, and significantly, for the sin of fabricating a story about his 2003 trip to Iraq. The betting is that with Lester Holt handling “Nightly News” for six months, things will cool off—the country will have moved on to some other outrage—and Williams will be able to return...

Brian Williams, the face of the NBC News division and among its most visible personalities for the past decade, has been suspended from his post at??Nightly News for six months without pay.?? Lester Holt, who has been filling in for Williams since Feb. 9, will continue as interim anchor of Nightly News. "We have decided today to suspend Brian Williams as Managing Editor and Anchor of NBC Nightly News for six months. The suspension will be without pay and is effective immediately," NBC News president Deborah Turness said in a memo, adding that "this was a very hard decision. Certainly...

From: "Deborah Turness (NBCUniversal)" Date: Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 4:48 PM -0800 Subject: Brian Williams To: "@NBC Uni NBC News All" All, We have decided today to suspend Brian Williams as Managing Editor and Anchor of NBC Nightly News for six months. The suspension will be without pay and is effective immediately. We let Brian know of our decision earlier today. Lester Holt will continue to substitute Anchor the NBC Nightly News. Our review, which is being led by Richard Esposito working closely with NBCUniversal General Counsel Kim Harris, is ongoing, but I think it is important to take...

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has been suspended for six months without pay following his false claims about an experience he had during the Iraq war, NBC News president Deborah Turness announced Tuesday night. "We have decided today to suspend Brian Williams as Managing Editor and Anchor of NBC Nightly News for six months. The suspension will be without pay and is effective immediately," Turness wrote in a memo to staff. "We let Brian know of our decision earlier today. Lester Holt will continue to substitute Anchor the NBC Nightly News."

The atmosphere surrounding Brian Williams has turned so toxic that it’s not clear when—or even if—he’ll be able to return to the anchor chair. The original plan—Williams apologizes, takes himself off the air for a few days, schmoozes with Letterman, and slides back into his job—has crumbled. The apology was weak and inaccurate, too fleeting to heal the wound over telling a lie about his chopper in Iraq having been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. His statement that he had decided as managing editor to suspend himself made it look like nobody at NBC is in charge, that he is...

Preliminary Nielsen ratings show “NBC Nightly News” dropped -36% on Friday from last week’s Monday-Thursday average among A25-54 viewers. NBC’s competitors were down too, but not as much: ABC was down -16% while CBS was down -17% on Friday.

Could not believe when someone told me this.

Embattled NBC News anchor Brian Williams is backing out of scheduled appearance on David Letterman’s “Late Show” on Thursday. That news from NBC came Sunday, a day after Williams said he was stepping away from NBC’s “Nightly News” as the network looks into the anchor’s admission that he had told a false story about being on helicopter hit by a grenade while reporting on the Iraq war. Williams had spread the story of his helicopter being under attack during a previous “Late Show” interview with Letterman. He apologized for the statements on Wednesday, and NBC News launched an internal investigation...

Back in the fall of 2006, long before Brian Williams confessed to "conflating " his helicopter adventures over Iraq, Nick Santangelo knew the NBC news anchor was a fraud.

NBC’S Brian Williams finally admitted that after 12 years of bragging about how he faced death while reporting on the Iraq War in 2003 that he had lied. Real soldiers flying in the helicopter transporting Williams to the war zone unanimously attested that, contrary to Williams’ heroic story, the aircraft was not hit and landed safely. Williams characterized his lie as “a mistake made in good faith. It was my way of bonding with the men and women who risked their lives in the battle against Saddam Hussein. It was also an attempt to make the war seem more real...

Back in the fall of 2006, long before Brian Williams confessed to “conflating” his helicopter adventures over Iraq, Neal Santangelo knew the NBC news anchor was a fraud. Santangelo, a Boston firefighter, former president of Local 718 and a proud veteran of the Navy submarine service, served on a committee that brought the Congressional Medal of Honor Society to Boston that year for its national convention. About six months before the society’s gala banquet at the Convention Center, Williams agreed to serve as master of ceremonies. But when he arrived on Saturday, Sept. 30, 2006, Williams told committee members Tom...

Brian Williams is taking a sabbatical until he’s no longer the laughing stock of the internet - this is HUGE! I can tell because even Maureen Dowd can’t seem to find the humor in it. It’s as if she senses something more existential (yes, I said it) is at stake here. It may be starting to dawn on her that the broadcast (and print) journalism franchise is flailing. Like Radio Shack, who continued to hang around providing inferior product and service long after they had lost sight of their objective.Here’s MoDo’s take on the situation: Although Williams’s determination to...

Ironically, the biggest witness against the exaggerated claims of Brian Williams' Hurricane Katrina fabulism turns out to be Brian Williams himself. His diary entries in the NBC News Daily Nightly online journal from the time of Hurricane Katrina hitting New Orleans to the aftermath several days later shows no mention of his many disputed claims. A detailed analysis of Brian Williams' Daily Nightly journal entries from August 29, 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans until our puppy-rescuing hero was safely out of harm's way shows no references to a floating body in the French quarter, drinking floodwater, catching dysentery,...

Lying used to be an offense that caused people to stop trusting and believing you. Now, it’s a “mistake” that’s to be weighed against the liar’s virtues before deciding if he is to be trusted. I noticed this in my law practice. When I first started out, you hit the litigation jackpot if you could show that the opposing party had lied about any semi-material fact. If you showed this in the pre-trial stages, opposing counsel usually would settle the case for peanuts. If you showed it during trial, the judge or the jury would slam the lying party. As...

Brian Williams' claims probed by NBC's investigative unit Published February 06, 2015 FoxNews.com NBC News has assigned the head of its own investigative unit to look into statements made by anchor Brian Williams about his reporting in Iraq a dozen years ago. A source at the network who requested anonymity because the person is not authorized to speak on personnel matters confirmed the investigation on Friday. Williams has apologized for falsely saying on the air that he was in a helicopter hit by a rocket-propelled grenade while in Iraq in 2003. Richard Esposito, a former editor at the New York...

What has happened at NBC News? Answer? Nothing that hasn’t been happening in slow motion for years. Back there in the mists of January -- last month -- I wrote a story in this space about a group called the Conservative War Chest launching a major effort to call attention to what the group called the“corruption of American journalism” - with a specific and detailed focus on NBC and its Comcast owners. Released weeks before these latest stories about anchor Williams hit the fan the 65-page report provided chapter and verse about the culture of NBC and its cable sibling...

Brian Williams is stepping away from NBC Nightly News for several days. The anchor sent a note to the show's staff, announcing that Lester Holt is replacing him this week. The news comes as the anchor is embroiled in a scandal surrounding his story about being a passenger in a helicopter that took fire in the Iraq War. Williams' message can be seen, below. "In the midst of a career spent covering and consuming news, it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news, due to my actions. "As Managing Editor...

Brian Williams said on Saturday that he was stepping aside from the daily broadcast of NBC’s “Nightly News” for the next several days, after admitting that he had misled the public about being on a helicopter that was forced down in Iraq. In a memo to the NBC News staff, Mr. Williams said that Lester Holt, the anchor for “Dateline,” would step in as the network dealt with the issue. “In the midst of a career spent covering and consuming news, it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news, due...

Via Ace and Twitter user Niedermeyer’s Dead Horse, yet another tale of Brian Williams’ heroism on that fateful day in Iraq in 2003 has emerged, this time from 2007. Don’t forget that the absolutely false version of his helicopter ride being hit by an RPG had been floating around since 2004, this time the story has even more compelling detail. Williams tells Fairfield University reporter Emily Fitzmaurice in November 2007 about all of the close calls he’s had as a reporter, including the 2003 incident in Iraq in which he looked down the tube of the RPG launcher. Pick up...

By saying he was in a helicopter that was hit by enemy fire–when in fact nothing of the sort actually happened–Brian Williams lied. His subsequent statements calling his lies a “mistake” is another lie. Williams clearly tried to steal some of the valor of those who have actually been under fire; and now that he has been exposed as a fraud, he is pleading with us to accept his actions as a “mistake.” A “mistake” is what has happened when you wear one black shoe and one brown shoe; it is what has happened when you leave your door unlocked....