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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As Brian mentioned in his vlog, he'll take you to a Joint Security Station on tonight's broadcast. Yesterday, correspondent Richard Engel was at a another JSS in Western Baghdad called Bonsai II. By design, the conditions are very spartan. The U.S. and Iraqi forces who serve there no longer have access to phones or the Internet, and they say they're experiencing a hidden casualty of this war -- strained relationships with their families back at home.
Click here to watch Richard's conversation with Command Staff Sgt. Albert McCall of Sarasota, Fla.
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Brian broadcasts again tonight from Iraq, where today he visited a Joint Security Station and recorded his daily vlog. Click here or on the image to see him explain the mission of U.S. and Iraqi forces who work together at the station.
Discuss (2 comments) Email this | Link to thisAlawi is a skinny 13-year-old Shiite boy who lives near our bureau. He has weak eyes and wears thick spectacles, and often shouts a greeting in English when he catches us going through the compound gates.
He lives with his parents and five younger siblings. His father is out of work so Alawi feeds the family by selling black market gasoline and delivering cooking gas cannisters. He makes a few dollars a day, and sometimes a little extra by holding a place for a neighbor in a long line of people waiting at the local gas station.
He was there last week waiting to refill a gas cannister. Iraqi guards were on duty to protect the crowd from bombers who frequently target gas stations, bus terminals and gatherings of day laborers looking for work. Sometimes they'll even attack funerals to inflict as many casualties as possible.
VIDEO: Watch NBC News footage of Alawi before the bombing and after (1:00 of video).
One of the guards asked Alawi to hop across the street and fetch him a sandwich. He left his empty gas cannister in the care of a friend, took the guard's money and ducked through a police convoy passing by.
That's when the bomb exploded.
Discuss (59 comments) Email this | Link to thisWhat an odd feeling in Saddam's old palace tonight, where we met with 4-star Gen. David Petraeus, the man in charge of the show here. The phrase "all that glitters..." comes to mind -- when you notice the construction is all about facade -- hollow walls, a chandelier that is made with plastic parts, cheap un-matched squares of marble, flaking gold plating on the fixtures... and Saddam's initials and inspirational slogans everywhere. Eerie, but not quite as creepy as the palace that I entered in downtown Baghdad just 48-hours after the initial invasion -- where I watched Special Forces soldiers remove what were believed to be the personal possessions of the dictator for DNA testing, and where a line of Third Infantry soldiers quickly formed to use the bathroom -- their first actual bathroom in days of driving and fighting -- which just happened to be Saddam's bathroom.
We're dealing with the common effects of working eight time zones away from New York. We're often expected to work, in effect, two days for every one at home. While our day (and often our only time to shoot and report) is New York's night, New York then comes alive when we are dead on our feet. Patrols happen when they happen, generals are available when they're available, and we can't change the fact that the first live feed of Nightly News is at 2:30 in the morning. We gain some solace knowing the men and women asleep in the tents that surround us are in many cases running on less fuel than we are -- while people's lives often depend on their work during the day.
Discuss (16 comments) Email this | Link to thisTime and computer problems have conspired against me today. I just got access to a working computer two hours before airtime, and am working in the back of a hollow truck -- sitting at a laptop with a Coleman lantern and a cup of coffee that Richard Engel just delivered, out of nowhere. As we are now an hour from air, I must switch my time and attention over to the broadcast -- and as soon as I am able (sometime in the next three hours) I will post a more detailed reading of our day. It has turned significantly colder tonight, but the wind has died down. We are still operating out of a complex of tents, feeding videotape and broadcast signals from our live van and trying not to wake the sleeping soldiers who surround us. More later...
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Brian Williams spends some time multi-tasking in his work space in Baghdad, listening in on Tuesday's editorial meeting while also previewing tonight's stories and providing a small tour of his temporary digs.
Click here or on the image to watch.
Discuss (4 comments) Email this | Link to thisThat's what we're calling them, for lack of a better word -- Web-extras. These are extended cuts from the story Brian will report on tonight's broadcast -- life at Camp Victory in Baghdad. He'll have more details for you in his regular afternoon post a little later. For now, here are the three videos. You can find all our Web-extras from the trip on this page.
VIDEO: Brian talks with Buffalo, N.Y., native Sgt. Tina Neal at Camp Victory in Baghdad about her third tour in Iraq.
Discuss (7 comments) Email this | Link to thisNBC's Paul Stimpson snapped this photo of the Baghdad bureau's whiteboard documenting today's violence in Iraq.
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There was some very bad news here today. Nine U.S. soldiers were killed by roadside bombs in the past two days. And some 90 Iraqi pilgrims were killed in two suicide attacks in Hillah, and more than 160 injured. And that was only the biggest attack today... there were several attacks on groups of pilgrims, bombs exploding near them and gun attacks on groups of people who were underway on foot, and had walked many miles already, to a sacred festival in Karbala. There was an attack on a prison, and some 140 prisoners, many al-Qaida suspects, were released. The white board in our bureau is almost covered with the list of today's violent attacks all over the country.
But we also had some good news. One of our Iraqi producers had a new daughter, and both his wife and baby are well. His immediate worry is trying to resist the pressure from both sides of the family, Kurdish and Arab, to force their choice of a name on him and his wife. And, in the longer term, he worries about how to keep his young family safe. But for now, the good news of a newborn healthy baby brought a smile to everyone's face here.
Photo caption: The whiteboard in the NBC News Baghdad bureau. Photo by NBC's Paul Stimpson.
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Among the elements in the broadcast tonight from Iraq will be conversations Brian had today with U.S. troops based at Camp Victory. We have a :40 snippet for you in advance of the broadcast and hope to have extended versions later tonight.
Click here or on the image to watch.
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VIDEO: Brian talks with Lt. Quammie Semper at Camp Victory in Baghdad about going 'outside the wire' on patrol.
VIDEO: Brian talks with Longview, Wash., native Staff Sgt. Korbie Boughton at Camp Victory in Baghdad about support of the mission
