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The scrutiny and pressure became too much for NBC News and Brian Williams on Saturday, and he announced — in his usual overwritten, faux humble-brag way — that he will take some time out of the limelight. "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,” Mr. Williams said in the two-paragraph memo. "As Managing Editor of NBC Nightly News, I have decided to take myself off of my daily broadcast for the next several days, and Lester Holt has kindly agreed to sit in for me to allow us to adequately deal with this issue. Upon my return, I will continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us."
It's kind of like going before the traffic judge and beginning your plea with "in the midst of a long career driving and riding in cars…" Come on, just be authentic. The step gives NBC News some time to see if other embellishments by Williams come forward and seal his career fate. If it's just "misremembering" whether he was shot down in a helicopter ten years ago or so — something you don't actually forget — and maybe inventing a floating dead body in post-Katrina New Orleans, maybe they can take away the managing editor title and let him just stay a news reader on the evening news. Please, don't let him do the news on location ever again. That was always unnecessary and cringeworthy.
From the New York Times story:
The news came a day after it was revealed that NBC was starting an internal “fact-checking” investigation into Mr. Williams that would review the Iraq incident in 2003, his reporting during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and any other issues that might arise. The investigation will be led by Richard Esposito, the head of NBC’s investigative unit.
A personal note from Brian Williams (NBC)
In her New York Times column, Maureen Dowd writes "this was a bomb that had been ticking for a while."
NBC executives were warned a year ago that Brian Williams was constantly inflating his biography. They were flummoxed over why the leading network anchor felt that he needed Hemingwayesque, bullets-whizzing-by flourishes to puff himself up, sometimes to the point where it was a joke in the news division.
But the caustic media big shots who once roamed the land were gone, and “there was no one around to pull his chain when he got too over-the-top,” as one NBC News reporter put it.It seemed pathological because Williams already had the premier job, so why engage in résumé inflation? And you don’t get those jobs because of your derring-do.
Previously on LA Observed:
Can Brian Williams survive his fake war story? Should he?
