Tom Brokaw played a key role in NBC’s decision last night to suspend the news anchor Brian Williams, according to two people involved.
Williams, they said, offered to make a full apology. NBC had begun a probe, led by the network’s investigations editor, Richard Esposito, which, though not complete, had already uncovered “more than one issue of Brian exaggerating,” according to one of the sources. Williams said that he realized the lameness of his apology, made last week, for “exaggerating” the dangers that he encountered in Iraq, in 2003. He assured NBC’s chief executive, Steve Burke, he would look into the camera and offer a compelling explanation of his lapse.
The second conferee said that Williams and his attorney were willing to accept a suspension, but that Williams wanted a declaration by NBC that he would return as an evening-news anchor. Burke, the conferee says, was torn between wanting to take a hard line and feeling compassion for Williams. Brokaw, who turned seventy-five last week, cancelled a Caribbean vacation to heed Burke’s request for advice. Brokaw was concerned about the effects of Williams’s actions on the reputation of the rank and file in the news division.
On Tuesday, Burke summoned Williams and told him that the suspension was non-negotiable.
“Duncan the wonder horse,” as Brokaw has been affectionately referred to over the years, has always been consulted by both his superiors and his peers. After General Electric purchased NBC, in 1986, the company’s C.E.O. at the time, Jack Welch, relied on Brokaw to serve as a bridge to and from a news division that he considered entitled and wasteful. The NBC president Robert Wright relied on Brokaw’s balanced judgment and deep ties to his news colleagues. Even after he retired as an anchor, a decade ago, Brokaw was often consulted by the two network presidents who succeeded Wright, Jeff Zucker and Burke. Brokaw saw the correspondent David Bloom, who died in 2003, as NBC’s greatest news asset; he thought Williams was a skilled broadcaster but that he was inclined toward self-aggrandizement. Williams wondered: If his predecessor had retired, why was Brokaw still in the studio, opining on election nights and introducing specials on “the greatest generation”?
Williams has been suspended for six months without pay. His Connecticut home is not Elba, but it may as well be. There is no reason to believe that his plummeting trust ratings will rise. NBC’s evening newscast will likely fall out of first place, instigating a frantic search for a replacement. As Williams “exaggerated” what happened to his helicopter, so it could be said that NBC is exaggerating its expectation that he will return.
