Brian Williams To Return To NBC, But Not 'Nightly News': Report
NBC tentatively agreed Wednesday to keep Brian Williams with the network once the disgraced news anchor’s suspension for embellishing stories comes to an end in August, according to a new report. However, upon his return, Williams will not be rejoining the “NBC Nightly News” show that he had anchored since 2014, CNN reported.
Details of the agreement were not made public, and CNN reported that one anchor lamented that "No one knows anything" in regard to the type of capacity Williams would be working in when his six-month suspension ends in August.
Williams was suspended without pay in February after an investigation into his coverage of the war in Iraq, Hurricane Katrina and other events determined he reported false first-person accounts. In one instance, Williams seemingly recounted an episode where the helicopter he was riding in was shot down in Iraq after coming under heavy fire in 2003. Later, some Iraq war veterans would dispute that account. He also was accused of fabricating a report of witnessing a body floating in the French Quarter of New Orleans from flooding brought on by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It was later determined that the French Quarter had not been overrun by flooding, thus making it impossible for a body to have been floating at all.
In the meantime, longtime NBC newsman Lester Holt took over Williams’ “Nightly News” duties, though the network has yet to name him to the position permanently. However, Holt has been coveting Williams’ salary of $10 million annually and would like to be awarded the same paycheck, according to a report from the New York Post’s Page Six gossip column.
Shortly before the suspension was announced, Williams took a self-imposed leave of absence but suggested in a prepared statement that he had no doubt he would be back at the network:
"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."
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