February 08, 2015
NBC News anchor Brian Williams has canceled a planned appearance with David Letterman this week, an NBC News source said on Sunday, the latest fallout over misstatements Williams made over his experience reporting on the Iraq war.
Williams said on Saturday that he would voluntarily take himself off the evening newscast for several days while NBC looks into an issue that has damaged his credibility.
Williams, whose return date to the nightly news has not been announced, will not be appearing on Thursday's Late Show with David Letterman, an NBC source said.
NBC, a unit of Comcast Corp, on Friday said it was launching an internal probe of Williams over his statements that he was aboard a helicopter that was brought down by enemy fire during the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Williams has told the tale repeatedly over the years, but escaped close scrutiny over the remarks until recently. He apologized this week, saying he "misremembered" the incident, an explanation that prompted other journalists and military personnel to call for his resignation. Williams has also been widely blasted on social media.
"As his profession shrinks and softens, Williams felt compelled to try to steal the kind of glory that can only be earned the hard way," columnist Maureen Dowd wrote in the New York Times on Sunday.
Also on Sunday, Elizabeth Spayd, editor and publisher of Columbia Journalism Review, told ABC News's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" that NBC should bring in an outside expert to conduct an investigation of Williams' statements.
"I don't think that there's going to be enough credibility that gets attached to that kind of an investigation when the people doing it … that have personal connections, personal relationships with Brian Williams," Spayd told ABC News's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "They work for a network … that has a lot at stake."
NBC News declined to comment over the Letterman cancellation.
The controversy has embroiled NBC's news division as it competes with other networks for ratings on nightly news broadcasts.
Williams is also facing scrutiny over statements he made about covering Hurricane Katrina in 2005, including assertions he saw a body float by the Ritz Carlton hotel in New Orleans where he stayed and that he got dysentery from the flood water.
