Brian Williams

An NBC News internal inquiry is examining a half-dozen instances in which Williams is thought to have embellished his accounts, including an episode involving statements he made about events in Cairo during the Arab Spring.

Journalists in NBC News’s powerful Washington bureau expressed strong opposition to the potential return of suspended anchorman Brian Williams during a contentious meeting with the head of the network’s news division in February.

Brian Williams’ suspension runs through August, but NBC might be forced to make a decision on his future sooner since the upfronts start next month. People on both sides of the negotiations, including some at NBC, say it is unlikely that Lack and NBC will go into the upfronts without resolving Williams’ status beforehand.

As the crisis over Brian Williams’ exaggerated war stories unfolded, NBC News execs were frustrated by the anchor’s “inability to explain himself,” a new Vanity Fair probe shows. Williams’ denial and strained relationships with network leaders made the situation even worse.

ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS, N.J. (AP) — Suspended NBC News anchor Brian Williams attended a fundraiser and donated $50,000 in a bid to keep his Catholic high school in New Jersey from closing. Mater Dei Prep announced in February it will close in June because of financial problems unless it can raise $1 million. Williams and his […]

While the Brian Williams fiasco might seem to be the cause of NBC News’ struggles, viewed through a wider lens it looks more like the symptom of a much bigger problem. Over the past year, all of the NBC News marquee ­franchises — Today, Meet the Press, Nightly News — have been badly damaged by bungled talent decisions and control-room shake-ups. Also, Williams wanted to move into comedy and made overtures to replace Jay Leno and David Letterman. Taken together, the upheavals portray a news division that has allowed talent to take over.

Former NBC News president Andrew Lack’s return to 30 Rock — he is currently in talks about a “top job” in the news division — would catalyze a major shakeup among the executive leadership and would likely signal Brian Williams’ return to the network, current and former high-level NBC News staff say.

An executive at NBC Universal who spoke on condition of anonymity because it was a personnel matter said that if an agreement is reached, Lack, a veteran executive who ran NBC’s news division from 1993 to 2001, would return in a lead role at the NBC News Group, which includes NBC News, MSNBC and CNBC. He would bring extensive news experience in the U.S. market to a leadership team that now lacks it.

Both NBC’s Brian Williams and Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly have been besieged with questions about their credibility. Most everything else about their episodes diverge, from the responses to the consequences.

Many viewers believe Brian Williams deserves a second chance on the NBC Nightly News — but a significant portion don’t think he’ll be able to regain his credibility. That’s according to a new survey by consulting firm Magid Associates, conducted in the wake of Williams’ six-month suspension last week.

NBC’s Brian Williams has been a frequent guest on late-night talk shows and sitcoms. But that’s nothing new; legends in journalism such as Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow made cameos on comedy shows, too. The Washington Post‘s Scott Higham explains how Williams followed in their footsteps, and then some.

Brian Williams’ future may hinge on just how many other examples of exaggerations and fibs are found. The network’s internal fact-checking investigation is “nowhere near done,” a senior NBC source said Thursday.

The decline of network news has been well documented for several decades, accelerated by the rise of cable news and then the Internet. Sharing in this fall has been the network news anchor, once among the most visible figures in American media.

Although NBC Universal chief Steve Burke says his chief anchor deserves a second chance, whether he actually gets one is another question. Brian Williams’ six-month suspension offers reasons for the split to become permanent.

News staffers at the NBC-owned stations have been ordered to review the network’s 83-page manual on news guidelines in the wake of the Brian Williams scandal at NBC News. WMAQ Chicago staff were told they have until Friday to get it done.

Byers says the lasting damage from the Brian Williams fiasco and loss of Jon Stewart’s satire — and ratings — will be devastating to NBC, Comedy Central and the larger TV industry.

The Morning Joe host appealed on the air Monday for Williams to be judged, after the current “fury” and social-media “madness” die down, on the totality of his career rather than on one to three “bad mistakes.”

Nielsen says ABC’s World News had 8.46 million viewers while NBC’s Nightly News had just under 8 million on Friday, two days after Williams apologized for telling a false story about being in a helicopter hit by a grenade in Iraq 12 years ago.

There have been two versions of Brian Williams. One is an Emmy-winning, sober, talented anchor on the NBC Nightly News and the other is a funny, urbane celebrity who hosts Saturday Night Live, slow-jams the news with Jimmy Fallon and crushes it in every speech and public appearance he makes. It’s all good until it isn’t.

CBS has lined up Tom Hanks as a replacement for embattled NBC News anchor Brian Williams for Thursday’s show. Williams’ move comes after he pulled himself off the anchor desk temporarily Saturday amid questions about his memories of war coverage in Iraq.

In a memo Saturday to NBC News staff that was released by the network, the anchorman said that as managing editor of NBC Nightly News he is taking himself off the broadcast for several days. Lester Holt will fill in, Williams said.

CNN’s Brian Stelter interviewed helicopter pilot Rich Krell, who said Thursday that the aircraft was hit by small arms fire, although not the grenade that Williams had one time claimed. But Friday, Krell, whose account was contradicted by other soldiers, is now saying that he is questioning his own memories.

The plot is thickening when it comes to Brian Williams’ apology stemming from his account of a 2003 helicopter flight in Iraq. One day after Williams apologized for having falsely represented over the years that his chopper came under RPG fire, the helicopter’s pilot, Rich Krell, said the aircraft did come under fire — just not under RPG fire.

Twitter users jumped at the rare opportunity to mock the longtime newsman, many using the hashtag #BrianWilliamsMisremembers.

The anchor of NBC’s Nightly News last night said he got it wrong when he recounted a 2003 incident in which he said he was in a helicopter that came under enemy fire when he was reporting in Iraq. Instead, Williams said, he was in another helicopter trailing a Chinook that was hit.

NBC News said it has signed Brian Williams, the anchor of its evening newscast and the public face of the NBCUniversal-owned unit, to a new long-term deal. No financial terms were offered, but the Los Angeles Times reported that the pact could be for as much as five years, and that Williams could receive as much as $10 million per year.

NBC News said Brian Williams would anchor the unit’s signature evening newscast live from Ferguson, Mo., while CNN said it would stay live throughout primetime rather than running its usual Tuesday documentary, two signals that events surrounding the recent grand jury verdict in the death of teenager Michael Brown continues to absorb the national focus.

Both ABC and CBS are looking to end NBC’s 256-week streak as the most popular evening newscast. David Muir takes over after Labor Day as anchor of the second-place World News at ABC. Steve Capus, former NBC news president and longtime Williams producer, is in charge behind the scenes as Scott Pelley’s executive producer at the CBS Evening News. So far this year, Nightly News has averaged 8.9 million viewers and widened its lead over ABC (8 million) and CBS (6.8 million).

Brian Williams met Edward J. Snowden in Moscow last week after months of negotiations between NBC News and intermediaries for Snowden.

NBC News’ Brian Williams has booked what’s being billed as Edward Snowden’s first U.S. television interview, the network said today. It’s set to air on May 28.

ABC and CBS are keeping top anchors Diane Sawyer and Scott Pelley in New York, where George Stephanopoulos will also be located Tuesday when he anchors an early morning ABC special on Mandela. The moves show how economics and a dwindling interest in international news are changing the biggest broadcast networks, where a decade ago there would have been little question that their most prominent faces would be on hand for such a big story.

Brian Williams is about to start distancing himself from his struggling NBC news magazine show Rock Center With Brian Williams, sources say.