Chief anchor and managing editor, Brian Williams has been suspended from NBC News without pay for six months due to a miscommunication he had announced while being overseas and “misremembering” the incident.
“As I am sure you understand, this is a very hard decision,” said NBC News President Deborah Turness about suspending Williams. “Certainly there will be those who disagree. But we believe this suspension is the appropriate and proportionate action” (www.USAToday.com).
Lester Holt will be filling in for Williams as substitute anchor as he sits out for the six months. Williams took himself off the air Saturday when Soldiers announced that Williams’s account of being on a Chinook helicopter that went down during an Iraqi invasion was not true.
“Millions of Americans have turned to him every day, and he has been an important and well respected part of our organization,” said Turness. “We felt it would have been wrong to disregard the good work Brian has done and the special relationship he has forged with our viewers over 22 years” (www.USAToday.com).
The scandal erupted when earlier this month Williams attended a New York Rangers game with a soldier who helped guard him and other American soldiers while a group of military helicopters were forced to land in a desert in Iraq in 2003. An announcer made a comment that eluded to the fact that Williams had been on an aircraft that had been hit. Williams also made remarks on Facebook that did the same, which he later replied were a mistake (nytimes.com). Williams also went on air making a public apology for his comments.
“I made a mistake in recalling the events of twelve years ago; it did not take long to hear from some of the brave women and men of the air crews who were also in that desert. I want to apologize, I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG air fire; I was instead in a following aircraft, we all left after the ground fire incident and spent two harrowing nights in a sand storm in the Iraq desert,” Williams said.
Williams continued thanking the brave Veterans and Soldiers protecting him.