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Good to be back

I just wanted to begin with a few words about my absence over the past couple of weekends.  It started with a respiratory infection and then a stomach ailment that sent me to the hospital for a week. Fortunately, I'm on the mend and happy to be back on the job this weekend. My sincere thanks to all of you who have sent "get well" wishes and a special "thank you"  to all of my collegues here at NBC News who offered their support during the past few weeks.

On to the news of the day, and the focus is once again on the Middle East. Israel moved across the Lebanon border today taking control of one village. The question tonight is about Israel's next step.  We have complete coverage tonight. Ann Curry will bring us the latest news live from Beirut tonight. Tom Aspell is in Haifa, Israel. Kerry Sanders also reports from Beirut and Dawn Fratangello reports from Limassol, Cyprus on the evacuations.
   

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FROM THE WEST COAST TO THE MIDEAST

Having stretched the limits of jet air travel, from Tel Aviv to New York to Los Angeles and soon back to New York again, today's post will be abbreviated due to time and the approaching deadline of air-time. We've been keenly watching the situation in the Middle East all day, and have put together a lineup tonight that we think best reflects story order and immediacy. Fletcher and Engel will again head up the coverage, Ann Curry remains in Beirut, Andrea Mitchell (whose reporting on diplomacy I thought was superb last night), will join our other correspondents in taking on today's latest twist: the "massing" of Israeli troops, for all the world to see, on the border with Lebanon. I note the word "invasion" is being used in some of the print and broadcast coverage to describe what Israel might be planning. It's a big word with major connotations and varying meaning. Another segment tonight that we are proud of is Jim Maceda's "Listening Post" sampling of mostly Arab media and how this crisis is being covered and portrayed, along with the players central to it. This segment has been several days in the making, and is, I think, a needed and thoughtful look at an interesting aspect of this. Just as interesting and useful is Mike Taibbi's piece (which we're calling in newsroom-speak "While you were sleeping..."), which covers some of the news NOT covered while our attention has been elsewhere these past few days. 

We're on a hair-trigger in terms of jumping on the air with developments, and our friends at MSNBC have been all over this story today. This crisis made for an interesting backdrop for today's meeting here with the members of the press who cover our industry. We had a good, serious session this morning which will continue in a more casual setting this evening. 

From our Los Angeles bureau tonight, we hope you can join us for the Friday night edition of NBC Nightly News.

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'Early Nightly' -- D.C. edition

When most people think of working in news, they probably think of the glamorous globetrotting anchorman. Brian himself would tell you that this week's globetrotting was long on hours and uncertainty, and very short on glamour. He mentioned earlier this week that one day's meals consisted of MREs and Power Bars thanks to the smart people he travels with.

Brian started the week heading from New York to Tel Aviv, then to Haifa, back again to Tel Aviv, with some interesting chopper rides and scary drives along the way. Then back to New York for Thursday night's show, presumably a brief respite in his own bed for one night, and then, good morning!, back on a plane today to Los Angeles where he will easily find more Power Bars but nary an MRE in sight.

So to help out while our intrepid anchorman globetrots, our own Chief White House correspondent David Gregory steps up with today's edition of "Early Nightly" -- a rundown of what you can expect in tonight's broadcast from Los Angeles. Click here to watch the video.

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Rice headed to Mideast

After criticism that the administration has not been involved enough in seeking a diplomatic solution, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will announce at the State Dept. in two hours that she is leaving Sunday for the Middle East with a first stop in Jerusalem and will outline her expectations for a durable peace plan.

According to a senior U.S. official, she will say that there are no quick fixes and that the U.S. wants a permanent, long-term solution - NOT an immediate cease fire. 
She will say that she is serious about this effort, but she will not lower the bar in order to get a quick solution. Aides say Rice does not want  "innocent lives to be lost as a down payment for future conflict." Before leaving Sunday, she may meet with the Saudi Foreign Minister who will be coming to Washington this weekend. While in Israel, she is likely to make a side trip to Ramallah to meet with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

At this hour, State is organizing a wider summit on Lebanon to take place Wednesday in Rome and to include Russia, European leaders, Egypt, Jordan Saudi Arabia and Lebanese Prime Minister Siniora. Following that meeting, Rice would go on to an Asian summit in Malaysia, and stand ready to return to the Middle East if developments warranted.

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Back in New York

For a time today, two-thirds of the network evening news anchors were inside the same steel tube hurtling across oceans and continents en route home to the United States.  Charlie Gibson and I landed just a few hours ago at JFK, and I'm now playing catch-up on our coverage plans and all that I have to do before airtime. Tonight we are going big on the Middle East once again, with several truly interesting and well-reported stories from the region. Our Engel/Fletcher combination will start us off, followed up by Ann Curry, Kerry Sanders and Dawn Fratangelo on the exodus. We will try to have a frank talk about policy with Andrea Mitchell, and we will take a look at the reception President Bush received from the NAACP today.

To all of you who have e-mailed us regarding our coverage of the conflict this past week, I wanted to assure you that we are reading and weighing all opinions carefully.  I'm aware of the charges of bias, favoritism, imbalance, impartiality, etc. News organizations know that anytime the dominant story emanates from the Middle East, viewer sensitivities become heightened, and viewer comments become... emotional. For each e-mail accusing us of being pro-Israel, another accuses us of being the broadcasting arm of the Hezbollah. While there were practical reasons (having mostly to do with safety, infrastructure and ease of movement) that led us to to base our anchor location in Israel during this past week (which I'm more than willing to explain at greater length), my job here is to make sure we get the coverage right. I have a lot of help at that task, which is crucial during a week like this one -- when I'm in the field as PART of the coverage. We talk about it constantly, we measure our words, we ask each other questions and we question each other's underlying assumptions. We realize we are judged every day, and we realize the power of our words and pictures right now. We're all humans and we're all professionals, and we ask to be judged on the body and balance of our work as a whole... on this topic and everything else we cover.

We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.

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Incredibly Proud, Nervous

We're happy to tell you that Brian Williams will be back in his assigned seat this evening after his visit to the Mideast.  We're especially happy to have all our colleagues back safe and sound, and hope our NBC personnel overseas continue to stay safe.  Just watching Brian, Martin, Richard, Kerry, Dawn, and our producers & camera folks covering the story makes us both incredibly proud and incredibly nervous.  On our air, you see just a handful of the people we have working overseas.....there are many more you don't see.

Brian taped some observations before leaving the area which you can see right now on Early Nightly (immediately below).   And we invite you to join Brian tonight when he willl have the latest on today's developments in that troubled region.

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'Early Nightly,' A Word About Safety

For today's entry -- a word about safety. I couldn't help but notice an e-mail written to our blog, "The Daily Nightly," by a very kind woman in Plano, Texas. It had to do with my safety and the safety of our team of correspondents.

I'm not in this job to take undue risks. We've seen that happen before. I'm not in it to leave NBC without an anchorman, leave my wife without a husband or my children without a father.

We are here though because there's no substitute for covering the story... For being here, seeing it, touching it and smelling it.

Because as you see this, we are on route home to our studio in New York where we will go on covering this story for days and weeks probably, sadly. And we will be educated -- our coverage will be educated by the fact that we were here and will be back here because it's what we do.

Click here to watch it.

We'll see you tonight on NBC Nightly News.

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Wednesday wrap

Just a note to direct readers to the Nightly News home page, where we've gathered the best of the broadcast's reporting from the Mideast:  www.Nightly.MSNBC.com.

One line from Brian's story about the Israeli gunners -- and the Detroit-born officer he encountered today -- I thought deserved repeating in this space: "This young officer who grew up rooting for the Lions and Tigers [is] now shooting at guerillas he cannot see."

We'll be back with more posts from the region in conflict on Thursday.

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Photos from the field

Producer Subrata De, who Brian thinks is angling for a job with National Geographic, sent in these three shots today during the team's tour of an Israeli artillery location along the Lebanese border. Brian will have a full report on the broadcast.

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Wednesday's outlook in the Mideast

Another eerie and incredible day here, and our broadcast tonight will go back and forth across this sweeping region as we cover two distinct sides in this fight.

As a member of our brave traveling party pointed out today, "the gravel beneath our feet was once walked on by Jesus Christ." These days, the territory is a landing pad for Katyusha rockets, while Israeli shells whistle by in the other direction overhead. Tonight you will see what we found when we came upon an Israeli artillery battery, operating on what is normally a fairgrounds in a valley just over a mountain ridge from Lebanon. You will see the fires we found burning all over the hillsides -- that's what happens when rockets (those that don't hit buildings or people) come to the end of their life. Richard Engel will take us to where the shells and bombs are landing -- the slow destruction of portions of Lebanon -- the countryside and the people, getting blown up in the Israeli effort to move Hezbollah from its northern border. An observation: judging only from the ammunition stocks we saw today, Israel does not appear to welcome an early, diplomatic solution. Another observation: Hezbollah is not facing a shortage of rockets -- the countryside is littered with their husks, and their presence has cleared Northern Israel of all but the bravest and most essential holdouts. It's that kind of jittery atmosphere. In the north, a concussion means an incoming rocket or an outgoing shell. In Tel Aviv, you wonder: has the fighting now come here? In Beirut, daily life is an enormous challenge -- and it must be all but impossible not to lose hope.

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