http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/brian-williams-114999.html?hp=t2_rThe Brian Williams plan: Wait and hope
A scheduled appearance on Letterman turns out to be too soon to step back into the limelight.
By Mike Allen
2/8/15 4:29 PM EST
Updated 2/8/15 6:09 PM EST
In a sign of deepening trouble, Brian Williams on Sunday canceled an appearance on “Late Night with David Letterman,” scheduled for Thursday, that had been a key part of his recovery strategy.
An NBC News source told POLITICO Williams will not appear.
The decision was made because NBC was unsure what the situation will be on Thursday, and because Williams didn’t feel he should keep a commitment to that appearance, when his return to “Nightly” was still up in the air, according to people familiar with the deliberations.
It was in Letterman’s chair in 2013 that Williams gave one of his most vivid accounts of a close encounter with an RPG in Iraq in 2003. CBS had announced the scheduled appearance last Tuesday, the day before the Stars & Stripes story that touched off the Williams troubles.
Earlier this weekend, Williams had planned to go ahead with the interview if things were looking better. The thinking had been that Letterman can do a serious interview, and the show would be a high-profile, controlled way for Williams to clear the air. But the harsh coverage continued Sunday.
On Saturday, Williams announced he would vacate the air “for the next several days,” with Lester Holt filling in as anchor of “NBC Nightly News.” Williams is expected to be off for at least a week.
The plan was an effort to buy time for NBC, according to people with knowledge of the situation. The thinking: See if the coverage cools off, find out if there’s other problematic video out there, and see how Holt does. Williams’ Saturday statement includes the key words, “Upon my return” – clearly his hope, although no certainty.
According to the people with knowledge of the situation, the instinct at the top of NBC and Comcast, its corporate parent, has been to try to preserve the asset: Williams is No. 1 at 6:30 p.m. by a wide margin, and “Nightly” is NBC’s only consistently dominant newscast newscast. he sense inside NBC News has been that Williams is too big to fail: He’s just too valuable, and there’s no obvious replacement.
One of these people emphasized in an interview with Playbook that there is no suspension, and there was no discussion of a suspension. This was Brian’s idea, and he took a pen and wrote yesterday’s statement himself, the person said. Brian is very remorseful — he has apologized, and likely will again, the person added.
