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NBC should fire Brian Williams. It’s not just because the face of its news division has become the trending punch line on social media after his harrowing account of a near-death experience in Iraq was exposed as false. It’s not just because his explanation for the discrepancies in fact were simply absurd, or because his apology was more parsed than abject. It’s because he fabricated a story. This is one line in journalism that must never be crossed, should never be rationalized and can never be mitigated by any sum of years of honorable service in the profession. * Williams...

ABC honcho’s ‘secret task force’ to investigate Brian Williams as NBC probes Iraq helicopter attack tale: sources Ben Sherwood, the president of Disney-ABC Television Group, has put together the task force to see if the ‘NBC Nightly News’ anchor has told any other tall tales, sources told The Daily News on Friday. ABC officials denied that such a task force exists. Meanwhile, Richard Esposito, who leads the Peacock Network’s investigative unit, has been assigned to look into Williams for lying about dodging danger while reporting in Iraq, sources said. The head of NBC’s investigative unit is breathing down Brian Williams’...

The waters have been choppy for NBC News in recent years, with its “Today” franchise having ceded ground to ABC’s “Good Morning America” and its Sunday-morning mainstay “Meet the Press” struggling to find a new identity after the death of longtime host Tim Russert. Amidst that chaos, Brian Williams was supposed to be the anchor – in both senses of the word. Now Williams, whose “NBC Nightly News” is the most watched evening newscast in the United States, has added to the challenges facing the NBCUniversal news division. [Snip] What makes Williams’ admission worse, according to one person familiar with...

CNN reports there is “widespread shock and disbelief” at NBC over the lies and explanation by NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams over his now infamous military helicopter ride in Iraq in 2003.“An NBC News spokeswoman said Thursday that the network stood by Williams’ apology and had nothing further to say. “But others within the news division, granted anonymity to speak freely about the situation, said there was widespread shock and disbelief about Williams’ foggy-memory explanation. One correspondent called it “unreal.”” CNN also reported NBC war correspondents and producers are “particularly perturbed” with Williams and question whether he will be...

A life threatening situation for Brian Williams. Fortunately the danger passes and the NBC News anchorman remains friends with his rescuer to this day. If that sounds like his story about his helicopter supposedly being hit by an RPG in Iraq, a fable that he was forced to apologize for, as well as his subsequent rescue by an army sergeant, it also sounds eerily similar to a story he told about Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. The SooperMexican blog made the discovery of Brian Williams' Katrina rescue story. It remains to be seen how authentic this story is but SooperMexican...

Writing for the Baltimore Sun, media journalist David Zurawik called for Brian Williams to resign or to be fired by Friday. “If credibility means anything to NBC News, Brian Williams will no longer be managing editor and anchor of the evening newscast by the end of the day Friday,” Zurawik writes. Wednesday evening, after being caught lying, the Nightly News anchor admitted that for the last 12 years he has repeatedly lied about being shot down in a helicopter over Iraq.

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams on Wednesday's program offered a clarification of the events that led to his news team being protected in Iraq by the Third Infantry in 2003 — and his recent honoring of one of the Army vets who was there. (snip) Williams and his team were actually in one of the aircraft following a Chinook helicopter that was hit. In fact, in the original Dateline special on the incident, Williams even says, "On the ground we learn the Chinook ahead of us was almost blown out of the sky," acknowledging he was not in the...

Update, 11 p.m.: Brian Williams apologized on-air tonight for claiming that he was in a helicopter hit by an RPG in Iraq, but the version of events he gives in his apology is vague in a way that avoids addressing the main accusation of the soldiers quoted in Stars and Stripes questioning his accounts of events. Those soldiers, in Stars and Stripes' telling, say that not only was Williams not in a helicopter that was hit by an RPG, but that he was nowhere near the helicopters that were actually fired upon. Said Williams tonight: "I made a mistake in...

If credibility means anything to NBC News, Brian Williams will no longer be managing editor and anchor of the evening newscast by the end of the day Friday. The admission from Williams Wednesday that he lied about being in a Chinook helicopter that was hit by enemy fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003 is astonishing. And he only admitted the lie after being confronted with it by the military publication, "Stars and Stripes," which has a well-documented report and timeline showing his shifting version of events over the years. SNIP Really, if this was 10 or 15 years...

Williams, the anchor of the "NBC Nightly News," apologized on Wednesday for claiming -- as recently as last Friday -- that he'd been aboard a helicopter that was "forced down after being hit by an RPG." The incident happened on March 24, 2003. A Chinook helicopter was forced down by enemy fire. But Williams was not aboard. Stars and Stripes reported on Wednesday that "Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter," one that "took no fire and landed later beside the damaged helicopter due to an impending sandstorm from the Iraqi desert." Williams is blaming...

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted Wednesday he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down by RPG fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a false claim that has been repeated by the network for years. Williams himself repeated the claim Friday during NBC’s coverage of a public tribute at a New York Rangers hockey game for a retired soldier that had provided ground security for the grounded helicopters. In an interview with Stars and Stripes, he said he had misremembered the events and was sorry. The admission came after crew members on the 159th Aviation...

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted Wednesday that he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, recanting a claim that he and the network had repeated for years -- most recently on Friday night. Contrary to Williams' past claims that he was traveling in a Chinook helicopter that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire on March 24, he arrived at the scene in a separate helicopter about an hour later. He apparently was never in any danger, and the Chinook that took fire, one of three in...

KASIE HUNT, MSNBC: And are you smart enough to be president of the United States?"

It was the best of Grubers, it was the worst of Grubers. It was a Gruber shamed before Congress, it was a Gruber unshaken before Congress. Okay, so which Jonathan Gruber appeared before Congress because it seems as if NBC Nightly News and Politico were watching two entirely different Grubers. First the NBC News Gruber in which reporter Kelly O'Donnell describes his public shaming:

LISA BLOOM, NBC LEGAL ANALYST: Now, this issue about charging, which I find to be a racially-tinged offensive word in and of itself, but I would have asked him, what exactly does that mean? Because at one point he says Mike Brown took a step forward. Another time he says, he took a hop, as he was about to run and then he began running. So running is inconsistent with one step forward. So which is it, Mr. Wilson? I mean, you really have to get to the bottom of it. You can't let an ambiguous word like 'charged' get...

Civil rights leader and MSNBC host Al Sharpton and his for-profit business owe more than $4.5 million in current state and federal taxes, according to a New York Times report out Tuesday. His tax liabilities come despite making a hefty salary, and he and his nonprofit advocacy organization, National Action Network, have been missing payments to hotels, landlords and travel agencies, the report says.

If you were just dying for soup -- and you were NBC medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman, bent on breaking an Ebola quarantine that you figured didn't really apply to you because you're so special -- what soup would it be? Ginger sweet potato? Cream of tomato? White beans & escarole? Thai hot & sour with shrimp? Split pea? Roasted eggplant, fennel & leek? These are just some of the famed delicious soups sold at The Peasant Grill in Hopewell, N.J., a place known for its fabulous soups. But owner Michelle Klein told me she would not comment on Snyderman's...

On Monday, The Daily Mail reported that NBC's chief medical correspondent, Nancy Snyderman, had a hankering for a bowl of soup from Peasant Grill in Hopewell Boro, New Jersey. So she hopped in her car with one of her crewmembers and headed over to the Grill. When she got to the restaurant, she had her crewmember run inside, grab the soup, and run back out. There was only one problem: Both Snyderman and her crewmember were under mandatory quarantine for 21 days. That quarantine was a result of their journey to Liberia to cover the Ebola outbreak, a journey during...

I'm not familiar with this source, but it popped up as Breaking NEws: BREAKING NEWS: Nancy Snyderman To Be Monitored For Ebola Princeton resident and NBC News Chief Medical Editor and Correspondent Dr. Nancy Snyderman is to be flown back from Liberia where she has been reporting on the Ebola outbreak in Monrovia. A cameraman on her team has tested positive for the disease, the fourth American to have contracted Ebola in Liberia. According to NBC News President Deborah Turness, “he will be flown back to the United States for treatment at a medical center that is equipped to handle...

According to NBC, Mukpo started showing symptoms on Wednesday, when he ran a fever and began feeling tired and achy. He was tested for the virus Thursday and it came back positive just under 12 hours later, the network reported on its website Friday. The other four members of the NBC News team are feeling well and not showing symptoms of the Ebola virus, according to the network. Mukpo is the fifth American infected with Ebola. He is currently being treated at the Doctors Without Borders Clinic in Monrovia. His mother, Diana Mukpo, told WBZ-TV Chris McKinnon Friday her son...