Brian Williams

Brian Douglas Williams (born May 5, 1959) is an American retired journalist and television news anchor.

Born on May 5, 1959, in Ridgewood, New Jersey, Williams was raised in a "loud" Catholic home of largely Irish descent.

He is the son of Dorothy May (née Pampel) and Gordon Lewis Williams, who was an executive vice president of the National Retail Merchants Association, in New York.

Williams is the youngest of four siblings.

He lived in Elmira, New York, for nine years before moving to Middletown Township, New Jersey, when he was in junior high school.

Williams graduated from Mater Dei High School, a Roman Catholic high school in the New Monmouth section of Middletown.

While in high school, he was a volunteer firefighter for three years at the Middletown Township Fire Department.

Williams was also the editorial editor for the school newspaper during his high school years.

He suffered an accident during a football game that left him with a crooked nose.

His first job was as a busboy at Perkins Restaurant & Bakery.

Following high school, Williams attended Brookdale Community College before transferring to the Catholic University of America and then George Washington University.

He did not earn a degree, ultimately interning in the White House Press office during the administration of President Jimmy Carter.

He later called leaving college one of his "great regrets".

Williams first worked in broadcasting in 1981 at KOAM-TV in Pittsburg, Kansas.

The following year he covered news in the Washington, D.C., area at then-independent station WTTG, then worked in Philadelphia for WCAU, then owned and operated by CBS.

Beginning in 1987 he broadcast in New York City at WCBS.

He was a correspondent for NBC Nightly News starting in 1993, before his promotion to anchor and managing editor of the broadcast in 2004.

Williams joined NBC News in 1993, where he anchored the national Saturday Nightly News and was chief White House correspondent.

In the summer of 1996 he began serving as anchor and managing editor of The News with Brian Williams, broadcast on MSNBC and CNBC.

Williams also served as primary substitute anchor on The NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw, and its Saturday anchor.

He reported the accident and death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

Williams became anchor of NBC Nightly News on December 2, 2004, replacing the retiring Tom Brokaw.

In December 2004, when Williams took the helm, he had to apologize for saying there are "bigger problems" than newsroom diversity.

NBC News President Neal Shapiro vowed to redouble the company's minority hiring efforts.

His coverage of Hurricane Katrina was widely praised, particularly "for venting his anger and frustration over the government's failure to act quickly to help the victims."

The network was awarded a Peabody, the committee concluding that "Williams, and the entire staff of NBC Nightly News exemplified the highest levels of journalistic excellence."

Williams accepted the award on behalf of the organization.

NBC Nightly News also earned the George Polk Award and the duPont-Columbia University Award for its Katrina coverage.

Vanity Fair called Williams' work on Katrina "Murrow-worthy" and reported that during the hurricane, he became "a nation's anchor".

The New York Times characterized Williams' reporting of the hurricane as "a defining moment".

For "outstanding" work as anchor and managing editor of the Nightly News, he received one Emmy in 2006 (for Nightly News coverage of the 2005 Hurricane Katrina), two in 2007, one in 2009, two in 2010, one in 2011, one in 2013, and one in 2014.

In 2007, Time magazine named Williams one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

In 2009, Williams was awarded the Walter Cronkite Award for Excellence in Journalism by Arizona State University.

At the announcement of the award, Cronkite said he was one of Williams' "ardent admirers" and described him as a "fastidious newsman" who brought credit to the television news reporting profession.

While anchoring the Nightly News, Williams received 12 News & Documentary Emmy Awards.

The 2014 Emmy honor was awarded to Nightly News for its coverage of a deadly series of tornadoes in Oklahoma, for which it also received the duPont-Columbia University Award.

In February 2015, Williams was suspended by NBC News for six months for "misrepresent[ing] events which occurred while he was covering the Iraq War in 2003".

Four months after the incident came to light, the network removed him from NBC Nightly News permanently and reassigned him as the breaking news anchor for MSNBC.

In September 2016, Williams became the host of MSNBC's political news show, The 11th Hour.

Williams announced in November 2021 that he would be leaving MSNBC and NBC News at the completion of his contract the following month, when he hosted his final episode of The 11th Hour.