NEW YORK (AP) – NBC News anchor Brian Williams found himself the story Thursday, his credibility seriously threatened because he claimed – falsely – that he had been in a helicopter hit by a grenade during the Iraq war.
NBC News officials would not say whether their top on-air personality would face disciplinary action. The “Nightly News” anchor for just over a decade, Williams had become an online punching bag overnight.
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 Williams 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? How could you expect anyone to believe he or the broadcast he leads has any credibility?” wrote critic David Zurawik of the Baltimore Sun.
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.