Williams’ - let’s charitably call them “exaggerations” - also hit closer to home. And especially at SEAL Team Six? Those guys don’t take journalists with them on missions.” Brian Williams in New Orleans in 2005. “I can’t even remember an embed with a SEAL unit. “There’s a healthy dislike towards embedded journalists within the SEAL community,” Webb said. Brandon Webb, a writer and former SEAL sniper who helped train “American Sniper” Chris Kyle, told the Huffington Post in February 2015 that he found the anchor’s tales of flying into Baghdad with SEAL Team 6 - and receiving various military keepsakes like a knife and a piece of a Black Hawk helicopter - “preposterous.” (He chalked up the lie as “misremembering” in his on-air apology.) The New York Times reported in February 2015 that he’d fallen from the 23rd-most-trusted person in America to the 835th, according to research by The Marketing Arm firm.Īnd the helicopter incident opened the door to the questioning of other Williams stories. Williams’ stock plummeted in both industry circles and the public after the Iraq scandal, a story he’d recounted several times in the years prior before it was outed as fiction. 28 years, 38 countries, 8 Olympic games, 7 Presidential elections, half a dozen presidents, a few wars, and one ‘SNL.’” Brian Williams in Baghdad in 2007. I will reflect on the kindness people have shown me, and I will pay it forward,” he added.īut in true BriWi style, he couldn’t resist talking himself up one last time, adding, “I have been truly blessed … NBC is a part of me and always will be. For the next few months, I’ll be with my family, the people I love most and the people who enabled my career to happen. “There are many things I want to do, and I’ll pop up again somewhere. “This is the end of a chapter and the beginning of another,” Williams’ statement continued. He’s going on his own terms, it’s his choice.” “Brian’s been in the business for 40 years - truly I think he wants to take some time and spend it with his family. Sources told us Tuesday that Williams has kvetched to friends of his late hours as well. “I was on the air for the launch of MSNBC,” Williams’ statement reads. “My return years later was my choice, as was launching ‘The 11th Hour’ that I’m as proud of as the decade I spent anchoring Nightly News … ‘The 11th Hour’ will remain in good hands, produced by the best team in cable news.” Chris Matthews and Brian Williams NBCĭespite the relative success of “The 11th Hour,” Williams’ star had fallen so far at NBC that he wasn’t even considered as a replacement for Chris Matthews last year when the anchor retired from “Hardball.” Williams, a source told us at the time, would have been “judged very differently” had he moved back to the early evening hours: “The audience wants red meat at 7, not a news recap,” the source continued. Lack has also been accused of downplaying a rape allegation against former “Today” host Matt Lauer and of his own shady behavior with female employees.) Ronan Farrow’s book “Catch and Kill” accused NBC News executives - including Lack’s major-domo Noah Oppenheim - of killing his Harvey Weinstein reporting. But many insiders believe that he didn’t want to do that 11 p.m. The source continued, “Brian is tired of being up so late, he wants to go and work on his own independent projects - he has no other deal with another network.
Plus Greg Gutfeld over on Fox News has been literally killing him in the ratings.” But his contract was up for renewal next month and there was no way they were going to pay him that money for an 11 p.m. “Brian,” an NBC source explains, “was still on the Andy Lack deal, which was something crazy like $7 million a year. Williams’ reflection likely involved his bank account. In a note seen by Page Six, he wrote to staff Tuesday: “Following much reflection, and after 28 years with the company, I have decided to leave NBC upon the completion of my current contract in December.”
Williams, 62, had been working in the relative hinterlands of the NBC news family for years, scrabbling to turn “The 11th Hour” into a hit following his six-month suspension in 2015 for falsifying details of stories that he’d covered, including one about taking enemy fire while riding in a helicopter in Iraq. NBC News Chairman Andy Lack could be on the chopping blockīrian Williams has announced he’s quitting MSNBC next month after nearly three decades with NBC News.