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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Brian anchors the broadcast from the nation's capital tonight, where all the news concerns the Iraq Study Group's report. You can read our latest story on it here, and you can read the FULL REPORT (160 pages, PDF doc) here.
Chief White House Correspondent David Gregory handles the vlog today, reporting from the north lawn. Click here or on the image to watch.
Discuss (2 comments) 
Email this | 
Link to this"Every war is a defeat for all of us... the practice of journalism is a commitment to life."
Jesus Abad Colorado
Photojournalist, winner of the International Press Freedom Award from the Committee to Protect Journalists in Nov. 2006
Journalism is an act of faith in the power of truth. We reporters are sometimes described as calloused, but under even the toughest exteriors lies an idealistic wish that if we tell you the truth about a wrong, you will want to help right it.
We felt this hope when our NBC news team recently reported about the atrocities in Darfur and neighboring Chad, where ethnic Arabs shouting racial epithets are systematically killing and raping black tribes people, driving them from their villages.
Our reports aired on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams, the Today program, MSNBC, and MSNBC.com. Now, so that more people can see what is happening, NBC News has decided to take the unusual step of offering FREE downloads of these reports on iTunes, starting today.
Discuss (8 comments) Email this | Link to thisWe are awaiting the Iraq Study Group news conference. We will air it live from here on Capitol Hill on the NBC television network. It will also air live on MSNBC. Following the event, I will make my way to the Russell Senate Office Building for interviews with Secretary Baker and Congressman Hamilton.
Discuss (2 comments) Email this | Link to thisAll of us waiting for the 8:30 Delta Shuttle to Washington were subjected to a modern-day dynamic in this era of the cellphone as public address system: if it's important to YOU, it should be important to all those around you.
I'm old enough to recall a time when calls placed to a loved one from an airport were hushed affairs, placed from a tiny booth with a hinged door that you closed up tight behind you. Onlookers could see only your moving lips as you discussed whatever topic needed discussing. It was back when phones were attached with wires, and back when the designers of the telephone foolishly assumed we would want the placement of the mouthpiece to correspond with the location of the average human mouth.
We know so much more now. These days, we've learned the EAR is a better place for the microphone. Sure, you need to talk a little louder to make the sound bend up and around to the side of your head, but do you know anyone whose looks wouldn't be enhanced by a clip-on earpiece with a cool blue flashing light? With this discovery, the era of the "Bluetooth over-share" was ushered into American life. Americans learned the thrill of conducting a full-throated telephone conversation in close quarters, for all to hear, for all to share. Intimate family topics can be discussed at loud volume -- without those old concerns over "privacy" -- our celebration of self means that complete strangers won't mind hearing it -- because it's a person or topic that's important to US.
Discuss (66 comments) Email this | Link to thisWhen I awoke this morning, the e-mail in my BlackBerry reported the response to last night's special version of the broadcast, with limited commercial interruption: "it's in the thousands -- too many to count -- all positive so far."
As a close friend and colleague said to me this morning, "Dick Salant (legendary former CBS News President) would be so proud." Dick became a good friend and mentor in the last years of his life -- that quote implies that Dick would have approved of what happened on the air last night. Thanks to a single underwriter, we were able to pack approximately 28 minutes of news into the 30 minutes the network gives us. Salant is a weighty name to toss around in our line of work, because of his steadfast protection of network news, so that was enormously gratifying to hear.
Discuss (78 comments) Email this | Link to thisYesterday’s White House visit by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, leader of Iraq's Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, points up once again the role Iran could play in Iraqi affairs. Like so many of Iraq's leaders, many of Iraq's political leaders spend years in exile in Iran, escaping the horrors of Saddam Hussein's prosecution of Shi'a and Kurd alike.
And while the U.S. isn't about to publicize the friendly ties between Iraq's leaders and Iran's, the President of Iran has no problem talking about them.
In his interview with Brian Williams in September, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad happily described his good relations with the Iraqi power structure. (Click to watch the interview from NBC Nightly News on Sept. 19.)
"The Iraqi President (Jalal Talibani) is an old friend of mine," Ahmadinejad told Williams. "The head of the state, the Prime Minister (Nouri al-Maliki) is a very close friend of mine too. And the head of their parliament, the parliamentary speaker (Mahmoud al-Mashhadani), is a good friend of mine too, so we're all friends."
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Brian begins today's vlog with thanks after last night's history-making broadcast, which one of you told us was truly "the best thing since sliced bread." Click here to read more of the feedback and send us your own.
As for tonight's broadcast, Brian anchors in New York and previews a few of the stories in the vlog. Click here or on the image to watch.
Discuss (5 comments) Email this | Link to thisTonight's NBC Nightly News will look very different to veteran viewers. We're experimenting tonight with something close to what our friends at PBS call an "underwriter" -- a single sponsor for the entire broadcast. Tonight, Philips has purchased the entire half hour. The commercial breaks will be limited (just two of them) and extremely brief. The comments I receive most often from viewers that I meet have to do with the content of the news itself... and our commercial load. We love our sponsors of course, all of them... they pay for all we do here... but for those interested in consuming as much news as possible with the fewest interruptions, we think you'll find tonight's format to your liking. We plan to do it again, and keep experimenting with it. I'd love to use it as a model for a new way to do business, but luckily for my company, I have absolutely nothing to do with the business side of NBC News. You WILL see a discernible difference in the amount of time devoted to NEWS in tonight's broadcast -- it is just a few minutes shy of the entire half hour, and that makes us all very happy. (Editor's note: We've set up a special feedback page where you can share your views with the broadcast and Philips. Just click here.)
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Brian anchors the broadcast tonight, which will be unique in the 37-year history of "NBC Nightly News."
I'll let Brian explain in the vlog. Click here or on the image to watch.
After you've watched, click here to share your thoughts.
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On Dec. 4, 1992, President George Bush announced that he was sending troops into Somalia on a humanitarian relief effort. Here, NBC News Pentagon Correspondent Jim Miklaszewski recalls that announcement and the ensuing conflict that resulted in the now infamous "Black Hawk Down" battle.
In the final weeks of 1992, I like most White House correspondents, was focused on the transition to President-elect Bill Clinton who had just defeated President George Bush. The last thing on our minds was the possibility that the lame-duck President Bush would order U.S. military forces into a high-risk mission overseas. Somalia? It sent most of us reporters scrambling for a world atlas.
On Dec. 4, President Bush delivered an oval office address to the nation in which he announced Operation Restore Hope, a mission designed to ensure that vital relief reached more than 1 million starving refugees caught in the middle of a violent civil war in the East African nation of Somalia. 80 percent of desperately-needed food and medical relief was stolen by armed militias. 500,000 Somali civilians had already been killed or starved to death. It was a human disaster.
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