Advertisement

NBC News finds Brian Williams embellished at least 11 times

 
Statements by NBC News anchor Brian Williams have been the focus of an internal inquiry.
Statements by NBC News anchor Brian Williams have been the focus of an internal inquiry.
Published April 26, 2015

A monthslong internal investigation of Brian Williams by NBC News has turned up 11 instances in which the anchorman publicly embellished details of his reporting exploits, the Washington Post reported, citing a person familiar with details of the inquiry.

NBC undertook the examination of Williams' statements after he apologized in early February for saying on NBC Nightly News that a military helicopter in which he was traveling at the start of the Iraq War had been damaged by rocket fire. His account was challenged by soldiers who were on the flight, leading to a furor that prompted NBC to suspend Williams for six months without pay and to investigate other statements he has made.

The Iraq claim was one of the 11 suspect statements that a team of NBC News journalists has identified during the inquiry, the Post reported, citing the individual, who asked not to be identified because he isn't authorized to talk about an internal matter.

The investigators, led by NBC News senior executive producer Richard Esposito, have also raised doubts about Williams' comments about his experiences covering Israel's military action against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. In an interview with a student-run TV station at Fairfield University in Connecticut in 2007, Williams said he saw rockets passing "just beneath" the Israel helicopter in which he was traveling. But Williams gave a less harrowing account of the same trip in an NBC News blog a year earlier.

NBC executives met in a conference room Thursday morning at the network's Rockefeller Center headquarters in New York for a briefing about the investigation. The meeting included the three executives likely to determine Williams' fate at the network: NBC Universal chief executive Steve Burke, NBC News chairman Andrew Lack and NBC News president Deborah Turness.

An NBC News spokesperson declined comment on Friday. Williams' attorney, Robert Barnett of Washington, did not respond to a request for comment.

It's not clear when, or even if, Esposito's findings about Williams will be made public. Although the investigation could be a critical factor in whether NBC decides to bring Williams back, it could also remain confidential as a condition of any potential severance agreement, the Post cited an NBC journalist as saying on Friday.

Williams' descriptions of both the Iraq and Israeli episodes have been previously reported, but the NBC inquiry appears to have turned up at least one incident that escaped notice in the frenzy that surrounded Williams' suspension. This one involves Williams' description of his reporting from Cairo's Tahrir Square during the Arab Spring uprisings in early 2011. It's not clear whether Williams actually reported from the chaotic square.

Williams' suspension ends in August.