As previously reported, NBC News anchor Brian Williams found himself in hot water last Thursday, over a false claim he made while reporting on the Iraq invasion. Williams announced he is taking himself off the air for an unspecified length of time, with Lester Holt coming in to pinch-hit..
The longtime “Nightly News” anchor, has gone from poster boy to whipping boy literally overnight.
As reported by the Associated Press, Tweets with the hashtag #BrianWilliamsMemories joked that he blew up the Death Star, saved someone from a polar bear and flew with Wonder Woman in her invisible helicopter. Photoshopped pictures showed him reporting from the moon and riding shotgun with O.J. Simpson in his Ford Bronco.
“How could you expect anyone who served in the military to ever see this guy onscreen again and not feel contempt?” wrote critic David Zurawik, of the Baltimore Sun. “How could you expect anyone to believe he or the broadcast he leads has any credibility?”
Williams apologized Wednesday for telling the story a week earlier during a “Nightly News” tribute to a veteran he had befriended during a 2003 reporting trip to Iraq. Before expressing his regrets on the air, Williams did so online and in an interview with the newspaper Stars & Stripes.
