NBC News anchor Brian Williams has announced that he would take a temporary leave of absence from his position anchoring NBC Nightly News. This move followed harsh criticism after it was revealed that a story he told about being in a helicopter that was shot down over Iraq in 2003 was false. “I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago,” he said in a statement. “I want to apologize. I said I was travelling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire. I was instead in a following aircraft.”
His claim was first made on January 30th, 2015 on a broadcast of NBC Nightly News, in which he said, “The story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq, when the helicopter we were travelling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG. Our travelling NBC news team was rescued and kept alive by an Armored Mechanized Platoon from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry.”
His validity of his claim was first challenged by troops present during the events. “Sorry dude, I don’t remember you being on my aircraft. I do remember you walking up about an hour after we had landed to ask me what had happened,” wrote flight engineer Lance Reynolds in a Facebook post.
Williams responded via Facebook, “You are absolutely right and I was wrong. In fact, I spent much of the weekend thinking I’d gone crazy. I feel terrible about making this mistake, especially since I found my OWN WRITING about the incident from back in ’08, and I was indeed on the Chinook behind the bird that took the RPG in the tail housing just above the ramp. Because I have no desire to fictionalize my experience (we all saw it happened the first time) and no need to dramatize events as they actually happened, I think the constant viewing of the video showing us inspecting the impact area — and the fog of memory over 12 years — made me conflate the two, and I apologize.”
NBC News is reportedly investigating the situation. “We have a team dedicated to gathering the facts to help us make sense of all that has happened,” said NBC News President Deborah Turness in a memo.
This incident was not the first time that the popular NBC anchor has faced scrutiny over a statement that he has made. In a 2006 interview, he claimed to have seen a body float by on a flooded street during Hurricane Katrina from his hotel window. However, there was little flooding in the French Quarter of New Orleans, the location of where the hotel he was staying at was located.
Joshua Bi is the Online Editor-in-Chief of Pulse Magazine.