A compilation of Brian Williams’s television appearances shows how his accounts of a 2003 episode on military helicopters in Iraq gradually became more perilous.
Scrambling to contain a crisis engulfing one of its most prominent on-air personalities, NBC will begin an internal investigation into Brian Williams, the embattled evening news anchor who has admitted he misled the public with a harrowing tale of a forced helicopter landing in Iraq.
The “fact-checking” inquiry, confirmed on Friday by several people in the network’s news division, will review not only the Iraq incident but also Mr. Williams’s reporting during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, as well as any other issues that arise during the investigation.
Richard Esposito, the head of NBC’s investigative unit, will lead the inquiry. Mr. Esposito does not report to Mr. Williams, who holds the positions of both anchor and managing editor for “NBC Nightly News.”
–
On Friday, other statements by Mr. Williams also started to draw close scrutiny. Some blogs and media outlets questioned Mr. Williams’s description of what he saw while reporting on Hurricane Katrina. In one account, he described seeing a person committing suicide. At another time, he said that he had heard a story of a man killing himself by jumping from the upper deck of the Superdome in New Orleans.
Tom Brokaw, who held the anchor chair before Mr. Williams, said in an email that he “neither suggested nor demanded Brian be fired,” refuting news reports that he had done so. But Mr. Brokaw also did not offer up an endorsement of his successor, saying only, “His future is up to Brian and the executives of NBC News.”
Before the episode, Mr. Williams long had been considered one of the most trusted people in not only in the news business but in the country as a whole. He was trusted by about three-quarters of consumers, making him the 23rd-most-trusted person in the country, according to the celebrity index of The Marketing Arm, a research firm owned by Omnicom. That places him alongside the likes of Denzel Washington, Warren E. Buffett and Robin Roberts.
A version of this article appears in print on February 7, 2015, on page B1 of the New York edition with the headline: Embattled Anchor Faces ‘Fact-Checking’ Inquiry at NBC . Order Reprints| Today’s Paper|Subscribe
