With Brian Williams absent, Lester Holt looks to steady ‘NBC Nightly News’

Effron, who is now a media consultant and adjunct journalism professor at William Paterson University, said that Holt never begrudgingly took an assignment while at MSNBC.

This week is, in some ways, his most challenging assignment yet. With the crisis swirling around Williams, Holt has the difficult task of steadying the ship and maintaining Williams’ top-rated audience.

At the same time, he can’t get too comfortable in the job, lest he appear to be taking advantage of the situation.

“However long he’s in that seat, he will represent the very best principles of journalism,” Effron said. “There’s nobody better positioned if that job were to open up than Lester Holt.”

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