NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke met with NBC executives on Sunday at his house to discuss how to handle the growing questions about news anchor Brian Williams, Politico Playbook reported.
Last week, the news anchor admitted his story about being on board a helicopter that took fire during the 2003 invasion of Iraq was false.
Since then, additional versions of his Iraq story surfaced, revealing that the newsman had embellished the story over the course of a decade. The NBC “Nightly News” anchor on then took himself off air temporarily and cancelled his upcoming appearance on CBS’ “The Late Show with David Letterman.”
NBC has launched an internal investigation into Williams’ reporting on the 2003 Iraq invasion and Hurricane Katrina. But beyond that, it’s not clear whether NBC will discipline Williams.
I don’t think the subject under discussion was how big a raise he was getting or the size of the yearly bonus, more like the size of the severance package…
If it comes down like it does on a sports team manager, first comes the faux vote of confidence from the CEO, then the firing and severance package a week later.
There are people saying here the discussion about Williams are boring, but in fact it’s all a sad statement on today’s journalism and how it’s more 'tainment than info, and Williams has been one of the most eager of players…
Don’t see the “sad” part. I do see the part about how “Steve Burke Who We Are All Supposed To Believe Is On Top Of This Not-actually-a-crisis Crisis” felt the call of nature and and amidst pushing out a thought decided it might make him look good to have it leak out.
‘Hey, Media People, over here: I’m THINKING!’
Also, we all know where this is headed: Morning Goe’s NBC Nightly News With Morning Goe Featuring Morning Goe and Puppetino Fueled By Stale Air.
'Tainment indeed. In a sense, what’s happening to Williams reminds me of the incident in the late 1980’s where the German pop duo Milli Vanilli was outed for lip-syncing and their Grammy was cancelled [or whatever the proper term is].
I never found it to be a big deal. I thought lip syncing was fairly commonplace. My young daughters used to watch them on MTV and they seemed like a couple of nice kids. I use to watch along with my daughters. I thought they were a bit of fun and had some pretty good dance moves. As for their voices, I mean we weren’t expecting to listen to the Friendship Duet from Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers” or the Flower Duet from “Lakme”.
As with Williams, that the furor was taken so seriously was more entertaining than the furor itself.