Former longtime network anchor Brian Williams, now known more for embellishing than the great ratings he once had, is getting back on the horse.
But of course it’s a horse of a different color – anchoring a podcast vs. the top evening-news show in America.
Speaking of color, Williams first got in trouble with the NBC suits when he downplayed the need for “diversity.”
Twenty-two years ago, no sooner did Williams inherit the helm of NBC Nightly News from Tom Brokaw than he had to apologize for saying there are “bigger problems” than newsroom diversity.
So though a truer statement has never been spoken from 50 Rock, the newly-anointed anchor was quickly forced to go prostrate for the suits by saying he was sorry.
NBC News President Neal Shapiro immediately tried to cover the controversy, vowing to redouble the company’s minority-hiring efforts.
Despite game-day jitters, Williams ended up with huge ratings, sitting at the top of the charts while in the top anchor chair for one of the nation’s three TV networks.
He was off to a hot start but his credibility went south when he falsely reported a suicide inside the New Orleans Superdome following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
Williams seemed to have settled comfortably into the anchor seat after the Katrina falsehood, staying below the radar.
But just months later he falsely claimed to have been nearly hit while aboard an Israeli chopper by Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon by Hezbollah.
He apparently still wasn’t done trying to get away with making stuff up.
Williams tried a third time, in 2015, telling his viewers that while he was in a military helicopter during the Iraq War it had been “forced down after being hit by an RPG.”
Faced with skeptical military officers who were in the area at the time, he apologized for and recanted his then-disproven war story.
Four months later NBC suspended Williams without pay for six months for lying and misrepresenting the Iraq incident.
He was then effectively fired from the most-coveted job in broadcast journalism and sent over to waste away at MSNBC, a little-watched cable arm of NBC.
So now after years in virtual journalistic exile Williams is going to try his hand at podcasting.
The show, called “We’re Back with Brian Williams” will feature newsmakers, actors, athletes and other prominent figures.
The video production will be on Netflix.
“I just want to have interesting conversations with creative, funny, smart, talented, and consequential people, like the shows we all grew up watching and listening to,” Williams was quoted by Hollywood Reporter.
Heck, maybe he’ll even share a few war stories – from his halcyon days NBC, that is.
