Brian Douglas Williams (born May 5, 1959) is an American journalist and television news anchor. He was a correspondent for NBC Nightly News starting in 1993, before his promotion to anchor and managing editor of the broadcast in December 2004.
In February 2015, Williams was suspended by NBC News for six months for "misrepresent[ing] events which occurred while he was covering the Iraq War in 2003". Four months after the incident came to light, the network removed him from NBC Nightly News permanently and reassigned (demoted) him as the breaking news anchor for MSNBC.
In September 2016, Williams became the host of MSNBC's political news show, The 11th Hour. Williams announced in November 2021 that he would be leaving MSNBC and NBC News at the completion of his contract the following month, when he hosted his final episode of The 11th Hour.
Early life and education Born on May 5, 1959, in Ridgewood, New Jersey, Williams was raised in a "loud" Catholic home of largely Irish descent. He is the son of Dorothy May (née Pampel) (1918–1992) and Gordon Lewis Williams (1917–2010), who was an executive vice president of the National Retail Merchants Association, in New York. Williams is the youngest of four siblings.
He lived in Elmira, New York, for nine years before moving to Middletown Township, New Jersey, when he was in junior high school.
Williams graduated from Mater Dei High School, a Roman Catholic high school in the New Monmouth section of Middletown. While in high school, he was a volunteer firefighter for three years at the Middletown Township Fire Department. Williams was also the editorial editor for the school newspaper during his high school years. He suffered an accident during a football game that left him with a crooked nose. His first job was as a busboy at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery.The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, May 22, 2009.
Following high school, Williams attended Brookdale Community College before transferring to the Catholic University of America and then George Washington University. He did not earn a degree, ultimately interning in the White House Press office during the administration of President Jimmy Carter. He later called leaving college one of his "great regrets".
Career Early broadcast career Williams first worked in broadcasting in 1981 at KOAM-TV in Pittsburg, Kansas. The following year he covered news in the Washington, D.C., area at then-independent station WTTG, then worked in Philadelphia for WCAU, then owned and operated by CBS. Beginning in 1987 he broadcast in New York City at WCBS.
Williams joined NBC News in 1993, where he anchored the national Saturday Nightly News and rotated with the national "Sunday Nightly News" until 1999 and was chief White House correspondent. In the summer of 1996 he began serving as anchor and managing editor of The News with Brian Williams, broadcast on MSNBC and CNBC. Williams also served as primary substitute anchor on The NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, and its Saturday anchor. He reported the accident and death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Rise and ouster at NBC Nightly News Williams became anchor of NBC Nightly News on December 2, 2004, replacing the retiring Tom Brokaw. In December 2004, when Williams took the helm, he had to apologize for saying there are "bigger problems" than newsroom diversity. NBC News President Neal Shapiro vowed to redouble the company's minority hiring efforts.
His coverage of Hurricane Katrina was widely praised, particularly "for venting his anger and frustration over the government's failure to act quickly to help the victims." The network was awarded a Peabody, the committee concluding that "Williams, and the entire staff of NBC Nightly News exemplified the highest levels of journalistic excellence." Williams accepted the award on behalf of the organization. NBC Nightly News also earned the George Polk AwardKurtz, Howard. Reality Show: Inside the Last Great Television News War. New York: Free Press, 2007. Print. and the duPont-Columbia University Award for its Katrina coverage. Vanity Fair called Williams' work on Katrina "Murrow-worthy" and reported that during the hurricane, he became "a nation's anchor". The New York Times characterized Williams' reporting of the hurricane as "a defining moment". However, Williams' statements about Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath were received with scrutiny. For example, Williams referred inconsistently to a suicide inside the New Orleans Superdome after Katrina. CNN reported in a 2005 television documentary that Williams said he was not a witness to the suicide: "We heard the story of a man killing himself, falling from the upper deck."
Appearing on The Daily Show in August 2006, Williams told host Jon Stewart that he was nearly hit the previous month by Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon by Hezbollah while flying in an Israeli Air Force (IAF) Black Hawk helicopter: "Here's a view of rockets I have never seen, passing underneath us, 1,500 feet beneath us. And we've got the gunner doors on this thing, and I'm saying to the general, some four-star: 'It wouldn't take much for them to adjust the aim and try to do a ring toss right through our open doors, would it?' Anytime you want to cross over to the other side, baby, travel with me." The claim was drawn into question since there are no four-star generals in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Israeli helicopter doors are routinely closed during flights and the IAF's Black Hawks do not carry gunners. An IDF spokesman who was on the helicopter in question did confirm afterwards that there was Katyusha fire and, although the helicopter was not in danger, the "trajectory of the rockets was beneath us."
In 2007, Time magazine named Williams one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
In 2009, Williams was awarded the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism by Arizona State University. At the announcement of the award, Cronkite said he was one of Williams' "ardent admirers" and described him as a "fastidious newsman" who brought credit to the television news reporting profession.
While anchoring the Nightly News, Williams received 12 News & Documentary Emmy Awards. For "outstanding" work as anchor and managing editor of the Nightly News, he received one Emmy in 2006 (for Nightly News coverage of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina), two in 2007, one in 2009, two in 2010, one in 2011, one in 2013, and one in 2014. The 2014 Emmy honor was awarded to Nightly News for its coverage of a deadly series of tornadoes in Oklahoma, for which it also received the duPont-Columbia University Award.
Williams also received a 2012 Emmy for his interview program Rock Center and a 2013 Emmy for being one of the executive producers and editors of a documentary on the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. He also shared a 2014 Emmy awarded for an NBC News Special on the Boston Marathon bombing.
Based on Nielsen ratings results from late 2008, Williams' news broadcast consistently had more viewers than its two main rivals, being ABC's World News Tonight and CBS Evening News. On this note, NBC Nightly News beat the other two network programs in the Nielsen ratings all but one week from late 2008 to late 2014.
On February 4, 2015, Williams apologized for and recanted his then-disproven Iraq War story, which he had told on a Nightly News broadcast on January 30, 2015. He claimed that while he was flying in a military helicopter it had been "forced down after being hit by an RPG". Soon after it aired, Williams' story was criticized by Lance Reynolds, a flight engineer on board one of the three Chinook helicopters that had been attacked. Reynolds and other crew members said Williams had been aboard a separate group of helicopters from the helicopter that had been fired upon. Williams' helicopter was flying about half an hour behind and was forced to make an emergency landing because of a sandstorm rather than an attack. In a February 5, 2015 interview on CNN, the pilot of the Chinook in which Williams was traveling said that while the aircraft did not sustain RPG fire, it did indeed sustain small-arms fire and that the door gunners returned fire. Williams then claimed that several rounds missed him "by inches", which the Chinook crew chief denied. On February 10, 2015, NBC News President Deborah Turness suspended Williams without pay for six months from his position as Managing Editor and Anchor of the Nightly News broadcast for lying and for having misrepresented the Iraq incident. On June 18, 2015, he was demoted to breaking news anchor for MSNBC. At the time, his salary was $10 million a year, with a five-year contract signed in December 2014.
Rock Center with Brian Williams
On October 4, 2011, it was announced that Williams would be the host of Rock Center with Brian Williams, a news magazine program premiering on October 31, 2011, at 10:00 pm Eastern, replacing the canceled drama series The Playboy Club.
Named after the nickname of Rockefeller Center, the New York City landmark where NBC Radio City Studios are located, the program would become the first new NBC News program to launch in primetime in nearly two decades.
NBC cancelled Rock Center on May 10, 2013, due to low ratings. Additionally, the network was also having trouble finding a permanent time slot for the program. The last show aired on June 21, 2013.
Williams reportedly felt "insulted" by the program's cancellation.
Return to MSNBC In September 2015, Williams returned to the air as MSNBC's chief anchor. News events that Williams had then covered for MSNBC include Pope Francis's trip to the United States; the 2015 Umpqua Community College shooting; and terrorist attacks in Paris, San Bernardino, Brussels, and Nice. In January 2016, Williams also added the role of chief elections anchor for MSNBC and subsequently debuted in the new role during coverage of the 2016 Iowa caucuses.
As part of his chief anchor duties, Williams anchored The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, which was a nightly news and politics wrap-up show. Williams, alongside co-anchors Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid and lead analyst Nicolle Wallace, led the network's coverage of the 2020 United States presidential election.
Williams announced on the November 9, 2021, episode of The 11th Hour with Brian Williams that he would be leaving NBC News and MSNBC at the expiration of his contract the following month, after five years hosting the show and 28 years with the company. His final episode as host was December 9, 2021.
Other activities On November 13, 1999 and November 14, 1999, Williams served as host for NBC Sports' first live broadcasts of NASCAR races at the Homestead-Miami Speedway.
Williams frequently appeared on The Daily Show as a celebrity guest interviewed by Jon Stewart and in 2007, made regular cameos as a giant head sidekick looking on Jon Stewart and helping out with pronunciations of foreign names and occasionally other foreign affairs all beginning at the premiere of the new Daily Show set. He appeared on the Weekend Update segment of the season 32 premiere of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Dane Cook. He then hosted a season 33 episode on November 3, 2007, becoming the first, and still only, sitting network news anchor to host the show.
Williams appeared on Sesame Street in a 2007 episode, announcing the word of the day, "squid", in a special broadcast. Williams appeared on Sesame Street again in a 2008 episode, reporting for Sesame Street Nightly News about the "mine-itis" outbreak, becoming a victim. He was also the host of the 2009 Annual Sesame Workshop Benefit Gala. The following season, he appeared in another episode "Lying Is Bad".