Report: Tom Brokaw wants Brian Williams fired
The gossip-mongering column Page Six reports on the comings and goings at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, home of NBC News, in the aftermath of the Brian Williams fabrications.
Apparently, NBC brass wants to stick with Williams through thick and thin. And why not? This isn't some cub reporter caught making stuff up. This is the face of the company whose credibility has been shot.
Page Six is also reporting that NBC brass knew that Williams's story was a lie but only warned him not to keep retelling it.
You know you’re in trouble when Tom Brokaw is out for your blood.
NBC’s most revered journalist is furious that Brian Williams is still in the anchor chair after he sheepishly admitted he hadn’t traveled on a helicopter hit by enemy fire.
“Brokaw wants Williams’ head on a platter,” an NBC source said. “He is making a lot of noise at NBC that a lesser journalist or producer would have been immediately fired or suspended for a false report.”
On Wednesday, Williams, 55, acknowledged that he had repeatedly said he was aboard a chopper that had been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade during a 2003 reporting trip to Iraq, when he was actually safely traveling in a different aircraft.
Brokaw, 74, was still the “Nightly News” anchor when Williams came back from his Iraq expedition — and an insider said he knew the story Williams later spouted was bunk.
“Tom Brokaw and [former NBC News President] Steve Capus knew this was a false story for a long time and have been extremely uncomfortable with it,” the source said.
NBC News execs had counseled him to stop telling the tale.
Williams still took the anchor’s seat for his “Nightly News” broadcast Thursday evening — and was working at 30 Rock all day despite calls for his dismissal. He didn’t address the issue during the broadcast.
“He is not going to be suspended or reprimanded in any way. He has the full support of NBC News,” a network source said.
Many of Williams’ colleagues believe his claim that he simply “conflated” two versions of what happened in 2003.
“There have been meetings about it all day. They are taking it very seriously,” the NBC source said.
“But we believe that Brian’s apology on the air speaks for himself. He admitted over time he conflated the events.”
NBC brass hasn’t been talking to lower-level employees about the situation, leaving people in a panic, the insider said.
“NBC bosses don’t understand how serious this is. Nobody in a leadership position is talking to the troops. Nobody has addressed it,” the source said.
If Williams has lost Brokaw, he is not long for the anchor desk. A public statement by Brokaw that called on Williams to resign – a distinct possibility the longer Williams is in front of the camera – would devastate the network. Brokaw still has input into every major decision made by the news division, and a public break with his former bosses would rattle NBC News to its foundations.
It wouldn't surprise me if NBC wasn't already in negotiations with Williams's people to sever his ties with the network, paying him to ride off into the sunset. The controversy shows no signs of dying down, and the longer Williams is going on with business as usual, the more his – and NBC's – credibility suffers.
Ad Free / Commenting Login
FOLLOW US ON
Recent Articles
- The Slush Fund Nobody Voted For
- Hacktivism and the Possibility of WW III
- Illegals Working for Congress?
- Should FBI Agents Learn Martial Arts?
- Deep-State Sabotage in the DoD?
- What DOGE Is Accomplishing
- From Churchill to Vance...Sounding Off About Tyranny
- Globalist Games: They Play, We Pay
- Scorched-Earth Disease Control
- NATO, Ukraine, and the War Hawks’ Pixie Dust Playbook
Blog Posts
- Hunter Biden hotfoots it to a luxury vacation in South Africa, seemingly to avoid a deposition on his claimed poverty
- The Obamas' podcast bombs
- Did Stacey Abrams’s NGO really get $2 billion for appliances to hand out to Americans?
- Mark Kelly exposes the hypocrisy behind the Democrats’ electric vehicle fixation
- Washington state attorney general is mad at sheriff's office for complying with federal law
- Can Trump and the team really win?
- The Democrat party is in dire need of shock therapy in the form of hard truths
- CNN wants you to know that Biden did not strand the astronauts Musk is rescuing
- Could Rahm Emanuel be the Democrats' great hope for 2028?
- The South African ambassador’s fate shows that America will no longer be bullied
- Nvidia: The Vera and Fritz chips
- A track attack
- Dem violence and manhood
- Ending the Fed
- Hey Chuck, you need a tune-up