Brian Williams

At 65 years old, Brian Williams has this physical status:

Brian Douglas Williams (born May 5, 1959) is an American journalist who appears on NBC News' cable news channel MSNBC and as host of the network's nightly wrap-up program, The 11th Hour with Brian Williams is a cable news network that airs in the United States.

After Williams joined the service in December 2004, NBC News was given the Peabody Award for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina, and Williams accepted the award on behalf of the organization.

Williams was barred from his position as Managing Editor and Anchor of NBC Nightly News for "misrepresent[ing] incidents that occurred while reporting the Iraq War in 2003, and he was promoted to breaking news anchor for MSNBC on June 18, 2015.

Early life

Williams was born in Ridgewood, New Jersey, on May 5, 1959, in a "boisterous" Catholic home of mainly Irish descent. He is the son of Dorothy May (née Pampel) and Gordon Lewis Williams, who was an executive vice president of the National Retail Merchants Association in New York. His mother, who was an amateur stage actress, appeared on stage for the first time. Williams is the youngest of four siblings.

He lived in Elmira, New York, for nine years before moving to Middletown Township, New Jersey, where he was in junior high school.

Williams graduated from Mater Dei High School, a Roman Catholic high school in Middletown's New Monmouth section. He was a volunteer firefighter with the Middletown Township Fire Department for three years while high school. He served as the school newspaper's editorial editor while still in high school. During a football game that left him with a crooked nose, he suffered an accident. Perkins Restaurant & Bakery's first job was as a busboy.

Williams attended Brookdale Community College before transferring to the Catholic University of America and then George Washington University. He did not obtain a degree before starting his internship with President Jimmy Carter's administration. He later expressed regret for dropping college as one of his "great regrets."

Personal life

On June 7, 1986, Williams married Jane Gillan Stoddard, a member of First Presbyterian Church of New Canaan, Connecticut. Allison, an actress, and Doug, the late-night anchor of Geico SportsNite in New York, have two children. Williams and his wife live in New Canaan, New Jersey, and they own a beach house in Bay Head, New Jersey, as well as a pied-à-terre in Midtown Manhattan.

Williams served on the board of directors of the Medal of Honor Foundation from 2006 to 2015; he resigned days after being suspended from NBC.

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Career

Williams first worked in television at KOAM-TV in Pittsburg, Kansas, in 1981. He covered news in the Washington, D.C. area for then-independence station WTTG, then went back to Philadelphia for WCAU, which later became owned and operated by CBS. He appeared on WCBS in New York City beginning in 1987.

In 1993, Williams began NBC News as the national Weekend Nightly News anchor and chief White House correspondent. He began working as anchor and managing editor of The News with Brian Williams, which is broadcast on MSNBC and CNBC in the summer of 1996. Williams served as both the primary substitute anchor on The NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw and its weekend anchor on The NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. Diana, Princess of Wales, was injured and killed during her accident and burial.

Williams took over NBC Nightly News on December 2, 2004, replacing Tom Brokaw, who was toppled. Williams had to apologize for claiming that there are "more issues" than newsroom representation in December 2004, the year he took power. President Neal Shapiro of NBC News promised to redouble the company's minority recruitment efforts.

He was still allowed to continue, and Hurricane Katrina's coverage of the victims was highly praised, particularly for "explaining his indignation and utter inability to assist the victims." The network received a Peabody Award, the committee found that "Williams" was the author of "Williams," and the entire staff of NBC Nightly News exemplified the highest levels of journalistic excellence. Williams received the award on behalf of the company. For its Katrina coverage, NBC Nightly News also received the George Polk Award and the duPont-Columbia University Award. Williams' work on Katrina was "murrow-worthy" by Vanity Fair, who said that he became "a country anchor" as a result of the storm. Williams' reporting of the storm as a "defining moment," according to the New York Times.

Williams was named one of the top 100 most influential people in the world in 2007 by Time magazine.

Williams was named by Arizona State University in 2009 with the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism. Cronkite, one of Williams' "ardent supporters," was lauded as a "fastidious newsman" who contributed to the television news reporting field, according to his profile.

Williams received 12 News & Documentary Emmy Awards while anchoring the Nightly News. He was awarded an Emmy in 2006 for his "outstanding" work as anchor and managing editor of the Nightly News, one in 2009, two in 2010, and another in 2014. The 2014 Emmy was recognized by Nightly News for its coverage of a deadly series of tornadoes in Oklahoma, for which the University also received the duPont-Columbia University Award.

Williams also received an Emmy Award for his interview program Rock Center, as well as a 2013 Emmy for being one of the executive producer and editor of a film based on the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. He also revealed an Emmy Award for a NBC News Special on the Boston Marathon Bombing.

From late 2008 Williams' news broadcast consistently had more viewers than its two main competitors, ABC's World News Tonight and CBS Evening News, based on Nielsen estimates. In fact, NBC Nightly News led the Nielsen ratings from late 2008 to late 2014, beating the other two networks in the Nielsen survey for the first week.

Williams was barred from the show for six months in February 2015 for misrepresenting his participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. His pay was $10 million a year at the time, with a five-year contract signed in December 2014.

Williams was announced on October 4, 2011, at 10:00 p.m. Eastern, replacing the cancelled drama series The Playboy Club, which was announced on October 4, 2011.

The Rockefeller Center, the New York City landmark where NBC Radio City Studios are based, will be the first new NBC News service to debut in primetime in nearly two decades.

Because of low ratings, NBC pulled Rock Center out of existence on May 10, 2013, and the network was also having trouble finding a permanent time slot for the program. On June 21, 2013, the last show aired on June 21, 2013.

Williams has reportedly been left "insulted" by the program's cancellation.

Williams apologised for and reiterated his disproven Iraq War tale, which he had told on a Nightly News broadcast on February 30, 2015. After being hit by an RPG, he said a military helicopter he was traveling in had been "forced down." Lance Reynolds, a flight engineer aboard one of the three Chinook helicopters that had been shot, blasted Williams' story shortly after it aired. Williams had been aboard one of a separate group of helicopters from the helicopter that had been shot down, and had been forced to make an emergency landing rather than an assault, according to Reynolds and other crew members. Additional troops arrived shortly to announce that Williams was not in the group of helicopters under fire and that Williams had not been deployed in the case.

Williams had only said that "the Chinook ahead of us was practically blown out of the sky by an RPG" and made an emergency landing in his first on-air coverage of the incident on March 26, 2003. But in introducing the piece, NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw described Williams as having "got [him]self into... a close call in the skies over Iraq," and "Target Iraq: Brian Williams Was Riding Under Fire" in a tweet.

According to a book published by NBC in 2003, "Army Chinook helicopters [weren] were required to land in a desert after being attacked by Iraqi Fedayeen. Williams was aboard.

Williams did not mention that his craft had been destroyed in a 2007 retelling, but "I looked down the tube of an RPG that had been fired at us," he said, and it struck the chopper in front of us." This contradicted the crew's assertion that the craft was destroyed's that it was at least 30 minutes ahead of Williams' helicopter. However, the soldiers who piloted Williams' helicopter in Iraq said no rocket-propelled grenades were launched on the aircraft, a charge that Williams did not contest and apologized for. Williams wrote an article about his helicopter being "hit and landed quickly" in a 2013 report.

The Chinook's pilot, who was traveling with Williams said that although the aircraft did not sustain RPG fire, it did sustain small-arms fire and door gunners returned fire on February 5, 2015.

For misrepresenting the Iraq event, NBC News President Deborah Turness suspended Williams without compensation for six months from his position as Managing Editor and Anchor of the Nightly News on February 10, 2015. He was demoted to breaking news anchor for MSNBC on June 18, 2015.

In a podcast episode entitled "Free Brian Williams" from his Revisionist History podcast, journalist Malcolm Gladwell revisited the tale. Gladwell argued that the evolving versions of Williams' tale over the years corresponded to the common pattern of how human memory functions. People conflate and blend various memories, shift times, and locations, and misremember important and minor details over time.

Williams returned to the air in September 2015 as MSNBC's chief anchor. Pope Francis' trip to the United States; the Umpqua Community College shooting; and terrorist attacks in Paris, San Bernardino, Brussels, and Nice have all been reported by MSNBC. Williams also assumed the role of chief elections anchor for MSNBC in January 2016 and debuted in the new role during the 2016 Iowa caucuses coverage.

Williams anchoring The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, a nightly news and politics wrap-up show, was a part of his chief anchor duties. In February 2019, the New York Post called the program a "legitim hit," noting that the program had been "beating [computers] CNN and Fox News for three months in a row." Williams, along with co-anchor Rachel Maddow & Joy Reid and lead analyst Nicolle Wallace, supervised the network's coverage of the 2020 United States presidential election.

After five years hosting the show and 28 years with NBC News and MSNBC, Williams revealed on the November 9, 2021, episode of The 11th Hour with Brian Williams that he would leave NBC News and MSNBC at the end of his deal. It was his last night hosting the show on December 9, 2021.

Williams appeared on The Daily Show as a celebrity guest interviewed by Jon Stewart and in 2007, gave regular cameos as a giant head sidekick looking at Jon Stewart, assisting with the pronunciation of foreign names, and occasionally other international affairs, which were both on the first day of the new Daily Show set. He appeared on the Weekend Update segment of Saturday Night Live, hosted by Dane Cook. On November 3, 2007, he hosted a season 33 episode, becoming the first and only sitting network news anchor to host the show.

In a special edition broadcast, Williams appeared on Sesame Street in a 2007 episode, announcing the word of the day, "squid." In a 2008 episode, Williams appeared on Sesame Street again, reporting for Sesame Street Nightly News about the "mine-itis" outbreak and becoming a victim. He was also the host of the 2009 Annual Sesame Workshop Benefit Gala.

Williams did a skit with Brian Williams, the Canadian sportscaster of CTV Sports, on the CTV Olympic stage on February 22, 2010. As NBC's Williams compared his own modest set to CTV's expensive Olympic studio, some in the media dubbed this "Battle of the Brians."

Williams performed and reiterated what Williams says on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, where he slowed the news of the previous week as Fallon sings and repeats what Williams says, with The Roots providing the musical backing. In a few hours, a mash-up video made by Fallon, where Williams appears to rap to hip-hop instruments, became extremely popular. Williams has appeared on Late Show with David Letterman on several occasions. Regis Philbin's vivacious vocal impersonation was on display at an appearance on July 26, 2011. He has also appeared on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, where he appeared in numerous skits and interviews.

Williams appeared on NBC's television comedy 30 Rock as a caricatured version of himself. He is seen at home receiving proposition calls meant for Tracy Jordan in the episode "The Ones." He auditions to be a new TGS cast member on "Audition Day." Liz Lemon is also shown on the program taunting Tina Fey's character. Williams played a news anchor covering the Apollo 13 story on the West Coast of the 30 Rock season 6 live show in April 2012.

Williams spoke at Bates College in May 2005, The Catholic University of America in May 2004, and the University of Notre Dame in 2010. He spoke at the George Washington University commencement on the National Mall in May 2012. He was the commencement speaker for Elon University's graduating class of 2013, which also included his son Douglas.

Williams also worked on the Encyclopedia of World History from Backpack Books, which was released in 2003.

Williams has written for many newspapers, including The New York Times and Time magazine.

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