The Daily Nightly began on May 31, 2005. As Brian wrote in his first post it aims to provide a narrative of the broadcast day and a window into the editorial process at NBC Nightly News. Brian weighs in every weekday and NBC News correspondents and producers post regularly.
Brian Williams became the seventh anchor and managing editor in the history of NBC Nightly News on December 2, 2004. Read his full biography.
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One of the great things about working here is the people you run into in the hallways. Often it's an SNL guest host, a few weeks back it was Bill Clinton. Today it was the great David Hume Kennerly, former White House photographer for President Ford, and among the very best photographers alive today. David recently spent time with former Presidents Ford and Bush, and offered an update on each. His iconic photo of Anwar Sadat hangs, signed and inscribed, along our central hallway outside our newsroom.
To the news on this Friday night: a lot of it has to do with lessons learned (or not) since 9/11, and who was responsible for what... no matter who the U.S. chose to go after. Lisa Myers, David Gregory and Tim Russert (who has Vice President Cheney on Meet the Press this weekend) will help us sort it out. We'll report on the cable news story of the day, the fugitive in Upstate New York... and since it's Friday night: our Making a Difference report.
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Link to thisBrian anchors tonight, but Chief White House Correspondent David Gregory is on Early Nightly duty, giving you a preview of the stories we're working on. Click the link to the right (below the advertisement) to watch.
Discuss (2 comments) Email this | Link to thisI don't have much good news for this space today. In fact, I must open with some caveats: if you watched my Early Nightly video blog... you should know that very little of what I said we were working on for this evening's broadcast will make it to air. The day has changed... and so our world has changed. Also, to our friends in the Pacific time zone: you won't be seeing us tonight, due to NBC Sports coverage of the NFL. We're very happy that our network has the rights to football again, but... since we have the rights to news, this is not our favorite night of the week. People in those time zones WILL be able to find our broadcast on the Internet (at the hour when it would normally air on television). My apologies.
This will be abbreviated, as most of my afternoon was spent in a New York City firehouse for a special segment we are airing tonight... on three extraordinary young men. More on that in a moment.
Discuss (17 comments) Email this | Link to thisU.S. officials say that we should expect a series of tapes this week from al-Qaida, leading up to a message, probably from Osama bin Laden himself, just before the anniversary.
Citing analysis rather than intelligence, the officials say that today's tape followed by four days the Ayman al-Zawahri/Adam Gadahn tape on Saturday. "It's a logical progression from this to a message on or just before the anniversary," said one official.
Either Bin Laden or Zawahri has posted a message on or just before every anniversary since 2002 and with this being the fifth anniversary, we should expect more, said the official.
Today's tape is the most elaborate since the first anniversary, when the al-Qaida production company, al-Shahab, released video of the 9/11 plotters going over airline schedules prior to the attacks.
Another official noted the tapes are directed primarily at the U.S. audience, not an Islamic audience, noting the use of Gadahn, an American, on the weekend tape and the use of English subtitles in today's tape.
Discuss (3 comments) Email this | Link to thisJustice Department officials confirm that an American citizen who joined al-Qaida and has appeared in al-Qaida videos has been charged with supporting terrorism. The charges, in an indictment filed under seal, will be made public in a few days and could include treason.
The American, Adam Pearlman, was born in California and grew up in Orange County. He converted to Islam as a teenager, eventually changing his name to Adam Gadahn. He has so far appeared in four al-Qaida videos. In the most recent, on the Internet last weekend, he was introduced by Ayman Al-Zawahri, who said that Pearlman/Gadahn wants to lead his people "out of darkness into the light."
Discuss (0 comments) Email this | Link to thisThe debate is raging following President Bush's admission yesterday that terrorist suspects have been interrogated at secret CIA prisons around the world. Plus, what's this about a dress code at the White House? Those are two of the stories Brian mentions in today's vlog. Click the link to the right (below the advertisement) to watch.
Discuss (1 comments) Email this | Link to thisJust a note to let you know that we've launched a new blog in the mold of The Daily Nightly. First Read has been around for years now, but it's got a brand new bloggy look. NBC's Political Unit will do most of the heavy lifting, but you'll also get daily dispatches from NBC correspondents and producers covering politics and the campaign trail as Decision 2006 heats up. I'll continue to post political stuff here in The Daily Nightly when it relates to stories we're working on for the broadcast.
Discuss (2 comments) Email this | Link to thisWe are reporting on medical stories tonight and as always when possible we want to provide you the original sources so you can study them in detail if you wish.
The first is the discovery of two chemicals that appear in a pregnant woman’s body months before the condition called preeclampsia, or toxemia, sets in. The condition is a major cause of premature births and the finding should soon give doctors a test so they can initiate treatment as early as possible. You can read the study here.
We also make reference to what is called the "Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer." This is a joint effort of the American Cancer Society and the federal government to show the trends in the incidence and death rates for all sorts of cancer. The big news this year is that the breast cancer rate, which has been increasing steadily, seems to have leveled off. There is an enormous amount of data in this report. You can read summaries and find links to the full report and related sites here.
Discuss (0 comments) Email this | Link to thisDid President Bush just turn a Supreme Court decision (and a defeat of his earlier position) into a virtue? Fourteen bad guys (some of them among the worst citizens on the planet) now have new homes (cells) in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The president promised today to treat them with the "humanity that they denied others." Tonight we'll talk about today's event at the White House, and the underlying decision by the administration, including interrogation techniques. In deciding to give today's speech, the president disclosed the existence of once-secret CIA prisons (while the investigation continues into the leak of their existence in the first place) and Congress now gets the next move. The East Room event was part of the president's series of speeches embracing the war on terrorism -- running with it, actually -- as the dominant issue in the upcoming mid-term elections. This morning on Imus, Craig Crawford warned the Democratic party -- snake-bitten in its last two attempts to gain the White House -- against over-confidence. Nine interesting weeks to go. We'll have complete coverage of this intersection of politics and national security tonight.
Also this evening: Lisa Myers continues her investigation into the RPG defense system, Bob Bazell on health news today... and we'll check into the Montana fires that have some of my friends out there on the run and worried. We'll also check in on the story that has received so much attention across Europe.
We hope you'll join us for our Wednesday night edition of the broadcast.
Discuss (21 comments) Email this | Link to thisWe expect Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tenn., to offer the White House legislation on military commissions later today on the Senate floor. But what happens from there is unclear. Some key Senate Republicans don't endorse some portions of the administration's approach.
The Senate Armed Services Committee, headed by John Warner, R-Va., has been working on its own version of a bill on military commissions. Warner and fellow committee Republicans Sens. John McCain, Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, S.C., along with the committee Democrats, have been at odds with the administration on the best way to move forward from the beginning. In overly simplistic terms, a majority of the committee seeks more protections and rights for detainees during trials. The administration seeks more restrictions for detainees and leans more toward the process that was in place before the Supreme Court deemed it unconstitutional.
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