Former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw on Monday addressed the controversy surrounding his successor, Brian Williams, who was suspended from NBC amid allegations that Williams embellished stories about his reporting in Iraq.
According to CNN, Brokaw said at an event at University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics that William’s suspension has been “a very, very difficult time” at NBC News. He did not reveal any details or updates about the NBC investigation into Williams’ storytelling.
“There’s a process underway,” Brokaw said, according to CNN. “And the important thing is that the process is very carefully constructed, and we owe it to everybody — including Brian and his family and certainly the people who work at NBC News who risk their lives everyday, and to the integrity of what NBC News has stood for all these years — to let the process play out, to hear what the final conclusions are and then deal with it at that point.”
While discussing a recent Vanity Fair story about NBC News and the controversy surrounding Williams, Brokaw said that “there’s been way too much speculation” about how NBC has handled Williams’ alleged lies.
“I want to say two things. One is that Brian and I had a cordial relationship. You know, it was tricky because he succeeded me and I had my own strong feelings about how things should be done, but I never interfered with it. And I would make suggestions from time to time,” Brokaw said.
“Having said all of that, this is a really, really serious case, obviously,” he continued.
