Tom Brokaw Didn’t Say He Wanted Brian Williams Fired

Tom Brokaw is speaking out about a media rumor that claims he demanded NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams be fired. In fact, Brokaw–from whom Brian Williams took over the news anchor positio...
Tom Brokaw Didn’t Say He Wanted Brian Williams Fired
Written by Kimberly Ripley
  • Tom Brokaw is speaking out about a media rumor that claims he demanded NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams be fired. In fact, Brokaw–from whom Brian Williams took over the news anchor position back in 2004–said he hadn’t commented on the situation at all.

    The situation involves an untruth that Brian Williams says was forgetfulness rather than a lie. He claimed he was in a helicopter that came under attack. War veterans have come forward, questioning whether or not the helicopter in which he was riding–to report on the Iraq War–was even in the group of helicopters that got attacked. He apologized for his ‘error’ on Wednesday, but many are considering it an outright lie.

    It was the New York Post that first reported Tom Brokaw and his beef with Brian Williams.

    “Brokaw wants Williams’ head on a platter,” they quoted an NBC source as saying. “He is making a lot of noise at NBC that a lesser journalist or producer would have been immediately fired or suspended for a false report.”

    “I have neither suggested nor demanded Brian be fired,” Tom Brokaw said in a statement. “His future is up to Brian and the executives of NBC News.”

    NBC News has now launched their own investigation into the Brian Williams situation. NBC News President Deborah Turness announced the probe in an internal memo on Friday.

    “As you would expect, we have a team dedicated to gathering the facts to help us make sense of all that has transpired,” Turness wrote. “We’re working on what the best next steps are.”

    Might Brian Williams get fired even without Tom Brokaw ‘demanding’ that NBC do just that? It certainly doesn’t look good to millions of viewers when the anchor of their long trusted news show shares ‘untruths’ with those viewers.

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