From this week’s Poynter Power Rankings with Tom Jones:
Brian Williams
The veteran news anchor signed off his MSNBC show, “The 11th Hour,” for the final time Thursday night. That ended his 28-year association with NBC News. But he’s likely not getting out of the business. When he announced last month that he was leaving NBC, Williams said, “I’ll pop up again somewhere.”
Williams lost one of the best gigs in journalism as anchor of the “NBC Nightly News” in 2015 after it was discovered that he had exaggerated his role in a helicopter episode in Iraq. He ended up back on MSNBC in 2016 and has repaired his damaged reputation since then.
There are many who will never forget or forgive Williams for bending the truth. I get that. At a time when there’s a real distrust of the media, many feel Williams did serious damage and believe he lost the privilege of delivering the news. But Williams certainly seemed remorseful as he kept his head down and went back to doing hard and good work for MSNBC over the past five years. He will never again rise to the top of his profession as an evening news host, but he should — and almost certainly will — come back in a pretty good spot eventually.
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