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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Good day from New York. We are following some important developments being reported by top military commanders regarding the search for those 3 missing soldiers in Iraq. In addition to saying he believes at last two of the soldiers are still alive, General David Patraeus is telling an Army newspaper he believes he knows who kidnapped them. Also, the Army says it has some of those directly involved in the ambush and kidnap in custody. NBC's Ian Williams is working the story for us and will report on some other intriguing findings in the search on the broadcast tonight.
Every time the disappearance of a child or young woman becomes national or international news the question inevitably surfaces in newsrooms everywhere: Why is this case news worthy when so many others go unreported? In the case of a British child snatched from her parents’ vacation residence in Portugal a few weeks ago the answer seems to lie in the number of famous and high profile individuals who have offered their names and money to aid the search. Tonight we will take a closer look at the unprecedented attention the plight of little Madeleine McCann is receiving around the world.
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Link to thisWe have covered a lot of ground this work week: a round-trip to London and now a night in New Orleans. The highlight of the flight here was discovering that Roberta Flack sat in the row behind mine...not EXACTLY behind my seat...that passenger, unfortunately, chose to kill me softly with his tray table, which he must have raised and lowered 50 times after takeoff.
The broadcast will originate from the New Orleans Convention Center tonight. I'm pretty sure there was a time when I thought I'd never set foot in this place again -- either due to personal vow (because of what happened here) or its mere existence: remember, there were rumors and rumblings after Katrina that this place and the Superdome would both be closed down. Now its home to a jewelry trade show...and as I write this, vendors are carting their wares in from the street, and a piano is playing on the convention display floor. It's been 20 months since people died in this building.
In New Orleans on Friday Photo by Subrata De
We'll take a full accounting of how this city is doing on tonight's broadcast. We'll have other news from Los Angeles, Gaza, Washington, and Africa.
A word here about the people who were here when I walked in here today: our travelling technical crews are the best. They get in early (before I arrive on a story) and stay late to break down (after I leave for the airport), and they do great work. We're also greatly benefitted on this trip by having a New Orleans Bureau, which is supplying camera crews, producers and two of our correspondents tonight.
Discuss (19 comments) Email this | Link to thisOur Middle East Correspondent and Beirut Bureau Chief Richard Engel offers a very powerful entry today on our sister blog "World Blog" on the two ABC journalists killed in Baghdad. He asks the question on a lot of people's minds: Is reporting in Iraq still possible?
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Brian is on his way to New Orleans where tonight's broadcast will originate. Meanwhile, NBC's Janet Shamlian is in Chicago where she previews some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast.
Click here or on the image to watch.
Discuss (3 comments) Email this | Link to thisBecause sometimes you just can't get enough travel, I'll be brief today because we're preparing for our next trip. Tomorrow night we'll originate from New Orleans -- what I'm told will be our 13th return trip since our coverage of Katrina close to 20 months ago.
Tonight's broadcast could end up going a few different ways...I'm reluctant to say too much except for the basics: we'll look at the impact of today's immigration "deal" in the Senate, we have a strong investigative piece from Lisa Myers, a bit of a health debunking, and a story about one of the enduring American mysteries...since 1963.
I'm mostly about others today. I must ask you to link to this Rush Limbaugh transcript -- set aside some time and read to the end. My favorite quote? "Some of you need to just lighten up out there." That's one for the ages, and I'm tucking it away. And no, Amanda from Ridgewood, it does NOT apply to you, OR Joan from Cheshire. I know who my friends are.
There's also video you should see -- it's been posted by our friends over at Keith Olbermann's show on MSNBC. I don't know whose original handy work it is.
It's Thursday afternoon, and with all the work I've got, I am also keeping an eye on SNL rehearsals going on 4 floors above us. Zach Braff is guest hosting and Maroon 5 is the musical guest...and this is it, the last episode of the season. I'm confident that after last weeks's season high this will be another great outing.
OK -- we'll get to the work of laying out this half-hour (I trust that you all read about my friend and executive producer Alex Wallace in today's New York Times prior to this post) and we will hope that you can join us tonight, as we do every night.
We'll look for you from New York tonight, then New Orleans tomorrow night.
Discuss (18 comments) Email this | Link to thisHi. A lot of politics on the Internet today, most of it serious, but with a little musical challenge thrown in at the end:
BullDogPundit at AnkleBitingPundits sums up conservatives' anger over a possible comprehensive immigration reform bill.
And McJoan at DailyKos points out that netroots Democrats are getting angry at their party's House rank-and-file for stalling on lobbying reform after running against the Republican "Culture of Corruption."
Discuss (4 comments) Email this | Link to thisNBC's Pete Williams previews some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast.
Click here or on the image to watch.
Discuss (1 comments) Email this | Link to thisThis morning's edition of The New York Times offers an article on "Nightly News" and the folks who make it happen -- in particular, Executive Producer Alexandra Wallace.
"Alexandra Wallace, who got the equivalent of a battlefield commission when she was named executive producer of 'NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams' two months ago, keeps her plans for the broadcast on a to-do list streaked with tight scribbles from a black, felt-tip marker. She calls it her 'crazy person list,' and she is continually cutting and pasting it, as if it were a worn map to buried treasure. (Mr. Williams has another analogy: 'It’s like her blankie,' he says.)"
Read the complete article (NYTimes.com login required)
Discuss (3 comments) Email this | Link to thisEditor's note: Producer John Rutherford often covers military funerals for the Washington bureau. He filed this note in the internal NBC computer system and we were moved enough to share.
As the fighting in Iraq increases, so do the number of funerals at Arlington National Cemetery. Today, two men killed in the war were buried, including a celebrated Marine Corps major known as "the lion of Fallujah."
The Marine band and a 60-member Marine honor guard escorted the casket of Marine Maj. Douglas Zembiec to his grave. Navy Chaplain Lt. Cmdr. Ray Houk could be heard exhorting the huge crowd, "We are all Marines," and Zembiec's widow Pamela was clutching an American flag long after the service ended.
Discuss (17 comments) Email this | Link to thisTrivial fact of the day: not one room inside 10 Downing street is air conditioned. The heat is so uneven, there's a space heater in the Prime Minister's office.
Thanks to British Airways and the wonders of jet travel (and with a nod to dizzying amounts of quick-turnaround, where-am-I jet lag) we are back in New York, having sat yesterday at this time where Churchill sat to read his morning papers. Tonight's broadcast will feature not a prime minister but a former president: Bill Clinton is, as of now, scheduled to spend a few minutes of live television time with us tonight to discuss his climate change initiatives (which he's unveiling today along with New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg).
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