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.
 |
|
 |
|
 |
advertisement
About the broadcast | Biographies
RSS is an easy way to get the news you want as it is updated even if you are not on MSNBC.com. More information about MSNBC.com's RSS feeds.
Podcasting brings you audio and video from each weekday broadcast on your iPod or other portable MP3 player anytime, anywhere. More information about MSNBC.com's podcasts.
Sign-up for our daily e-mail newsletter. It offers a preview of the stories and special reports featured on each weekday broadcast.
Brian is on the ground in Chicago preparing for the broadcast and found time to jump in front of a camera, after all.
So click here or on the image to watch his version of the Early Nightly. We'll consider Janet's the early Early Nightly.
Discuss (0 comments) 
Email this | 
Link to thisHi. It's an economy edition today, with a lot of discussion on the Internet and in the papers about the GDP and the stock markets.
Huffington Post links to AP's story on Gross Domestic Product, the broadest measure of the economy which was revised to a scant 0.6% today.
Nouriel Roubini is a bearish economist who has taken a lot of criticism, including being called an "economic Eeyore" as the stock markets have continued to rise. Today's GDP revision gives his views some validation and his readers more to talk about. (This is one blog where smart people regularly post comments. The comments section is almost always worth looking through.)
Discuss (1 comments) Email this | Link to this
Brian anchors the broadcast from Chicago tonight. In addition to his conversation with Mayor Daley, you'll also see a profile of Michelle Obama from NBC's Janet Shamlian. Janet previews her conversation in today's vlog.
Click here or on the image to watch.
Discuss (0 comments) Email this | Link to this
Every weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
HARVEY C. "BARNEY" BARNUM, JR.
First Lieutenant, U.S. Marines Corps Company H, 2nd Battalion, 9th Marines, 3rd Marine Division
At the Cheshire, Conn., high school military assembly in 1958, representatives of all branches of the military made presentations to the student body. After the Navy, Army and Air Force speakers were all interrupted by hoots and catcalls, the Marine recruiter stood up and gave a tongue-lashing to the rude students, as well as to the faculty members who had made no effort to correct their behavior. As he began to stalk out of the auditorium, he was surrounded by students eager to sign up. Among them was senior class president Harvey C. "Barney" Barnum, Jr.
In late 1965, Barnum a first lieutenant, arrived in Vietnam with the Ninth Marines. On the morning of December 18, as the battalion was moving through the heavy overgrowth in Quang Tin Province south of Da Nang, the area suddenly exploded with the fire from enemy rockets, mortars, and machine guns.
Discuss (6 comments) Email this | Link to thisThe expression "worst nightmare" does indeed come to mind when you read the details of the virulent case of TB in the news. Tonight we'll look at the detective story behind it and the ramifications of it ... and we'll see if that expression is warranted. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution led the way on this story today, chiefly with its interview with the so-far anonymous quarantined patient. We have a thorough package of coverage planned.
We'll also have the latest on the NATO chopper reported downed this afternoon in Afghanistan. We'll report on Iraqi refugees -- and we have a fascinating report to get on the air over the next two days from our own Richard Engel who has just traveled to Kurdistan. Wait 'til you see what life is like just 300 miles north of Baghdad.
Discuss (15 comments) Email this | Link to this"What do we want? Decency! When do we want it? Now!"
That was the chant by a small but determined group of women outside the offices of Viacom in midtown Manhattan. They're targeting the media giant because it owns BET, MTV and VH-1, and the hip hop and rap music they play.
"What specifically do you want off the air?" I asked. The terse response: music about bitches, hos and nig%$#'s. You know it when you hear it. "Prurient, debased and racist depictions of women in particular in the media," is how Janice Mathis of Rainbow Push describes it.
I honestly believe we would not have been out there were it not for Don Imus. The women agree. Numerous groups came together to form something called "Women's Voices," during the Imus controversy. Now, they're trying to ride the public interest generated back then, to try and clean up the airwaves. Some of Imus' defenders said he was just repeating what's so often heard in rap music. "Women's Voices" is trying to take that defense away.
Discuss (6 comments) Email this | Link to this
Robert Bazell previews some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast.
Click here or on the image to watch.
Discuss (0 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
VAN T. BARFOOT
Technical Sergeant, U.S. Army 157th Infantry, 45th Infantry Division
Later in his life, Van Barfoot would be hailed as one of the significant Native American heroes of World War II. His grandmother was a full-blooded Choctaw but his mother failed to enroll him with the government as a member of that tribe, so Barfoot grew up aware only that he had American Indian blood, not that he was an "official" Choctaw.
He enlisted in the Army in 1940, before the new selective service law authorizing the peacetime draft was passed by Congress, and he was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division. After his training, he participated in maneuvers in Louisiana and Puerto Rico. In December 1941, he was promoted to sergeant and assigned to the newly activated Headquarters Amphibious Force Atlantic Fleet at Quantico, Virginia. When the unit was inactivated in 1943, he was reassigned to the 157th Infantry.
Discuss (3 comments) Email this | Link to thisWe're in Boston with beautiful views of the Green Monster, the Charles River, M.I.T., and of course the Citgo sign. This morning's journey here was an odd confluence: on board the shuttle, I was reading the astounding piece this morning in the Wall Street Journal -- about how air travel is actually slowing down -- meaning: the extraordinary delays now built into the system. Sure enough, due to "airspace congestion," the 9:30 flight departed at 10:20 -- and everyone on board took the news quietly. It's hard to pinpoint just when our transportation system got this way, exactly, and when the notion of codified delays become an acceptable part of the American transportation system. Is it part of the overall "leadership" issue that Lee Iacocca laid out in our interview with him last week?
Discuss (12 comments) Email this | Link to thisEvery weekday for 110 straight days we will feature a different living recipient of the Medal of Honor. These are the men who have received their nation's highest military honor. Brian is a board member of the Congressional Medal of Honor Foundation. The words and photos are courtesy of Artisan Books, publishers of "Medal of Honor: Portraits of Valor Beyond the Call of Duty by Peter Collier with photographs by Nick Del Calzo.
DONALD E. BALLARD
Hospital Corpsman Second Class, U.S. Navy (FMF) Company M, 3rd Battalion, 4th Marines, 3rd Marine Division
Donald Ballard was 20 years old, married, and working in a dental lab with the hope of someday becoming a dentist when he decided to join the Navy in 1965. Midway through basic training, informed that dental assistants were plentiful but corpsmen were in short supply, he was sent to surgical assistant school. He assisted in orthopedic and general operations, then was "volunteered" to serve as a medic with the Marine Corps. His unit soon sailed for the Mediterranean, where it made a simulated amphibious landing on Corsica. While there, Ballard and the other American servicemen got to know some French Legionnaires, who told them daunting stories about Vietnam. In 1967, he was sent into the war zone on a transport plane, which had a strange smell. He later found out that it served as a "morgue plane" on its outbound trips.
Discuss (3 comments) Email this | Link to this
