Media accounts have concentrated more on Williams’ misstatements than the apparent lack of executive oversight. (His appearances on late-night shows, for example, were set up by public relations people and supported by NBC management.)
Meanwhile, Williams — who is bound by the terms of his contract — isn’t allowed to speak without the network’s approval, and the network isn’t giving him that approval right now.
As NBC’s fact-checking continues, two accounts from Williams’ younger days could invite scrutiny.
As a reporter for WCBS-TV in New York in 1989, Williams traveled to Berlin to cover the demolition of the Berlin Wall. The assignment has become an omnipresent line in his various biographies, and Williams himself has identified it as a career highlight.
“I’ve been so fortunate,” he said during a 2008 forum at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. “I was at the Brandenburg Gate the night the wall came down.”
Williams did indeed witness some of the wall’s physical removal. But “the night the wall came down” is widely recognized as November 9, 1989, an iconic date with particular significance to Williams’ “Nightly News” predecessor Tom Brokaw.
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Brian Stelter contributed reporting.
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