Kurtz: Suspension ‘An Attempt to Save Brian Williams’ Job’

Fox News Media Analyst Howard Kurtz argued that the suspension of Brian Williams was an attempt to save his job and that the suspension had “a hell of a lot” to do with NBC’s lack of a deep bench on Tuesday’s “Kelly File” on the Fox News Channel

“This is an attempt to save Brian Williams’ job because his apology was so weak, and lame, and contained inaccuracies, as because he was allowed to announce ‘as managing editor I’m taking myself off the newscast for a few days,’ it sounded like nobody at NBC was in charge. So, as these questions came up, as the atmosphere turned toxic, Megyn, and it has a lot of people, 40% in a Rasmussen poll, said he should just be fired, he should be out of there, NBC realized that, not only did Brian Williams need to be held accountable, but he had to be seen as paying a price. That’s step one. The other step is we need to hear a lot more from him, whether it’s now, or six months from now, explaining, asking the public’s forgiveness if he’s going to get back into that anchor chair” he stated.

When asked how much of Williams’ suspension “had to do with the fact that NBC News don’t have the deepest bench?” He responded, “a hell of a lot, because you have the ‘Today’ show slipping from number one, you have the problems with ‘Meet the Press,’ and David Gregory getting the boot. And so, ‘NBC Nightly News,’ number one, 9 million viewers a night, that’s a lot of money and reputation invested in one Brian Williams. And I do think the NBC brass was sincere in saying, we have to weigh his whole career against this mistake, but it’s more than a mistake.”

He concluded that “there are other people at NBC who knew that chopper in Iraq was not hit by an RPG as Brian Williams said many different times.”

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