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 Saturday afternoon to you. Thanks for checking-in.
We've got a lot planned for tonight's broadcast including a hard look at what's been taking place on Iraq's northern border this week. The Kurdish-controlled northern part of the country doesn't generate much in the way of headlines because it has remained stable, peaceful and prosperous while other parts of the country are engulfed by civil war. This week, however, the Turkish army has shelled positions inside Iraq, trying to hit Kurdish rebels it accuses of taking refuge on the Iraqi side of the border. The raids have set-off diplomatic alarm bells from Baghdad to Washington, and fears of an impending Turkish incursion. We've asked NBC's Jim Maceda to look at what is at stake and whether we are watching the beginning of a potential new flash point in Iraq, or just a minor side show.
We've got two different perspectives on the challenges President Bush is facing at home and abroad. NBC's Kelly O'Donnell is with the president in Rome where he met with Pope Benedict. The two have not seen eye to eye on Iraq, but today they managed to find some common round on humanitarian issues.
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Link to thisOne day each year we engage in a tradition around here: our compilation of some of the best commencement speakers of the graduation season. Tonight: our tribute to the Class of 2007. It's a beautiful and emotional piece of television, and we hope you enjoy it as much as we enjoy airing it. (Editor's note: This year, we'll have a version available on our Web site. It won't have the same music because of rights restrictions, so if you want to see the original broadcast version, better set the VCR or the TiVo.)
There is big news tonight at the Pentagon. Headline: the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is out. Subhead: the Navy has an unprecedented control over management of much of the military. We'll have the story and analysis.
The President fell ill today in Europe, but is said to be recovering. The Vice President received some health news today as well. Kevin Tibbles has the Passport story tonight, Robert Bazell has the fascinating health story of the day: Vitamin D and the Catch-22 it raises. And we'll be here late tonight following the planned Space Shuttle launch.
In this space yesterday, I talked about a possible piece concerning allegations of a two-tier justice system (arising from the Paris Hilton story) -- and today cable television has been airing little else. It is heating up -- she is back in jail -- and some of the pictures out of there are incredible. I'm not sure what any of it says about our society, but George Lewis will lend his deft hand to the effort tonight.
Please make time to read about today's Medal of Honor recipient.
Please have a good and safe weekend.
We hope you can join us for tonight's broadcast.
Discuss (13 comments) Email this | Link to thisThe NBC Nightly News commencement round-up piece is an annual tradition on the broadcast. While it might seem that we just piece together a commencement speaker here, a hat toss there, and some entertaining graduation shots in the mix, there is an enormously painstaking process involved in bringing this story to life. This year we actually went through (based on my mathematical skills) over twenty thousand minutes of tape. That's nearly 14 days of content, played continuously, that we reviewed in order to bring you the best of the best.
The process started for us nearly two months ago when we began calling colleges and universities to see who would be speaking at their commencement ceremonies. Our call list included nearly 300 schools, and with three of us splitting the list it was still a huge task. This was only the beginning of the process and not even the most time consuming. After getting in contact with most of the schools by the beginning of May the “hurry up and wait” for tapes began. The majority of commencement ceremonies took place in late May, but we did have some tapes rolling in during the second week of the month. That was when the time consuming process of logging the commencements kicked in.
Having done this last year, I had a good idea of the type of footage that would fit well in the piece, but figuring out which commencement speakers to use is always a challenge. Lucky for us our producer, Vicky Bernal, was tasked with that aspect. As the Fed/Ex boxes piled up day by day, we made significant progress and scanned through the nearly three hundred tapes that we received.
Discuss (6 comments) Email this | Link to thisThe burials at Arlington National Cemetery are becoming interconnected.
On May 29, Cpl. Christopher Murphy of Gladys, Va., was buried. He was killed in an ambush on May 12 in Iraq.
A week later, it was Cpl. Joseph Anzack Jr. of Torrance, Calif. He was captured in the same ambush. His body was found floating in the Euphrates River 11 days later.
Today, Staff Sgt. Joseph Weiglein of Audubon, N.J., was laid to rest. He was killed by a roadside bomb on May 29 while searching for two other soldiers captured in that ambush.
Several busloads of Weiglein's friends came down from New Jersey to pay final respects to the man known affectionately back home as "Sergeant Joe."
Discuss (8 comments) Email this | Link to thisNBC's Robert Bazell previews some of the stories we're working on for tonight's broadcast, including the broader implications of Paris Hilton's case, Vitamin D and it's effect on cancer and today's shakeup at the Pentagon. Click here to watch
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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.
JON R. CAVAIANI
Staff Sergeant, U.S. Army Vietnam Training Advisory Group, Republic of Vietnam
Born in England, Jon Cavaiani came to America with his parents in 1947 at the age of four. Although he was classified 4-F because of an allergy to bee stings, and although he was married with two children, Cavaiani enlisted in the Army shortly after being naturalized in 1968. He qualified for Special Forces and arrived in Vietnam in the summer of 1970; later he joined the Studies and Observation Group (SOG), an unconventional warfare task force, and was soon leading clandestine operations against the North Vietnamese.
In the spring of 1971, Staff Sgt. Cavaiani was in charge of the security platoon for an isolated radio relay site deep in the northwesternmost outpost of South Vietnam near Khe Sanh. The mission of his unit, which comprised 70 indigenous troops and 13 Americans, was to provide security for this intelligence-gathering operation.
Discuss (6 comments) Email this | Link to thisI commend to your attention the pictures of the G-8 leaders that we have for you tonight, (they apparently all had drinks together on the beach tonight) and the accompanying journalism of David Gregory who is in Germany with President Bush. The Bush/Sarkozy boardwalk conversation just LOOKED fascinating ... so is the material out of there today. Then there's the prognosis for immigration reform -- it appears that the last, best hope for a deal during this session will crash into the ground. It may be that this evening will end with this issue in a total muddle. If that happens we'll stay on it.
Discuss (13 comments) Email this | Link to thisHi. The developing story of the immigration bill votes in the Senate is a hot topic today on the blogs, but it's mostly speculation since a key vote will come later in the day. Otherwise it's a pretty random collection of politics, debate analysis and Scooter Libby fallout today.
You know something's got people's attention when ideological opposites ThinkProgress and Allahpundit at HotAir both link to the same piece of video on the heated immigration debate.
Residual blogging from Tuesday night's Republican debate finds much of the progressive blogosphere including Matthew Yglesias annoyed that the Mainstream Media hasn't made more of a significant misstatement made by Governor Romney. And Digby expands on that.
Discuss (0 comments) Email this | Link to thisNBC's Pete Williams delivers today's vlog from the Washington bureau. Click here to watch his preview of the stories we're working on at this hour.
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.
HECTOR A. CAFFERATA
Private, U.S. Marine Corps Company F, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines, 1st Marine Division
Hector Cafferata was a Marine reservist on inactive status when the Korean War broke out. At six feet two inches, 220 pounds, and a former semipro football player, Cafferata was a big, strong Marine. He also was an excellent marksman, having been a hunter since he was twelve years old.
On November 28, 1950, Cafferata’s company was on a barren Korean mountainside overlooking a narrow road near the Chosin Reservoir. Under the command of Captain William Barber, its orders were to hold the Tokong Pass, the escape route for two Marine regiments in the area in danger of being cut off. Cafferata was unaware that a massive Chinese unit was very close by.
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