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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I've said in this space before that I have unending respect for the road warriors I see in airports -- the men and women with the roll-on suitcases and the thousand-yard stare. I fly a lot, but not as much as they do. Today we lived their life and learned their credo, having to do with the tragic state of commercial aviation: you can't get there from here. After a harrowing morning, starting in Newark, N.J., and a macabre series of unfortunate events, a combination of aircraft got us to El Paso, Texas -- where we will originate the broadcast tonight. My thanks to Steven, with Continental Airlines in Houston, for his extraordinary help today. He should run his own airline.
During the course of the half-hour tonight, we will walk from the United States into Mexico, and through our correspondents on the ground, we'll cover the immigration issue as best we can.
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Link to thisFirefighters all across this country paused today upon hearing that nine firefighters had died in a tragic fire in Charleston, S.C. It's our lead story tonight. It is the largest single loss of firefighters since Sept. 11, and should get the attention of every American. As the local Chief put it today: flames robbed their department of 100 years of firefighting experience.
Jim Maceda will chronicle the good news/bad news of the "surge" in Iraq, Robert Bazell has an excellent follow-up to his own reporting on some of the wounded veterans from this war, and we'll continue our Texas-themed coverage this week with a hugely controversial construction project through that region of the country.
Andrea Mitchell will look at Hillary Clinton's pursuit of the women's vote, and Mark Potter will have our favorite story of the day out of the Vatican.
Discuss (12 comments) Email this | Link to thisKatrina is still a fresh memory -- and so it's difficult to watch some of the scenes from the flooding in Texas without thinking back to the helicopter rescues in Louisiana and Mississippi almost two years ago. Holes cut into rooftops show where the families escaped to the relative safety of the hot shingles, where they now wait and signal for help. One mother used a black plastic tarp in the midday heat to shield her two small children from the sun. Tonight Don Teague will cover the story for us; he's on the ground in Texas.
Discuss (12 comments) Email this | Link to thisIf they call Tom Hanks in for help, we'll know this is a serious problem on board the space station. So far, it seems to be a data issue with some complications. We have Tom Costello on the case, and he'll report for us.
From Gaza, today's headline appears to be this: the standing government appears split in two, and it looks like a militant Islamist state will take up residence next to America's most important ally in the Middle East. We're on the story, as we are other disparate topics like immigration, breakfast cereals for children and hidden, residential pot farms in California.
Discuss (11 comments) Email this | Link to thisIf you think a thunderstorm ruined our plans to anchor from an outdoor location last night (the 67th floor of 30 Rock), you would be only partially correct. At 6:15 p.m., the FDNY responded to a report of persons trapped in an elevator here. They promptly froze all the elevators in the building -- so we couldn't have gone to the roof if we'd wanted. We instead chose a small studio close to our newsroom, and after much scrambling and hard work, we got a broadcast on the air. As it happened, a downpour arrived before the half-hour was over. Had we made it outside, that storm would have ultimately driven us back inside.
Tonight our plans are more modest. We plan to do the broadcast indoors, from our usual studio. That should work.
Discuss (10 comments) Email this | Link to thisWe had elaborate plans for tonight's broadcast. The idea was this: since we originate from this spectacular building (30 Rock) each night, why not take to the roof and highlight the City of New York, our headquarters most nights of the week? That was until a line of "popcorn" thunderstorms (so named by meteorologists because they can pop up and explode out of nowhere given the right atmospheric conditions...like today) rolled through the New York area during our afternoon editorial meeting. Our weather, usually west to east, is today northeast to southwest. Flight delays at JFK are now officially posted at four hours, LaGuardia and Newark slightly less. Radar has been of no use because where there are no storms now -- there will be intense storms in 30 minutes. We're going to make a NASA-like "go/no go" decision in the next few minutes...this will be fun.
To go with our coverage package tonight on New York, Rehema Ellis has a great piece on an educational success story [editor's note: you can read a blog from the principal below], and we spent the morning with the mayor of New York, Michael Bloomberg. He takes the subway to work most mornings, and so did we.
Brian and Mayor Michael Bloomberg on the 4 train Tuesday morning.
Photo credit: Office of the Mayor
In other news tonight, there's the fight to save an immigration deal, the so-called "honor killing" in London, the new data on an aging American generation, the first FDA-approved over-the-counter diet drug (there are complications) and what we're calling "watchgate"...did wildly enthusiastic Albanians steal the President's watch, or did he remove it for safekeeping? It was actually a topic at the White House briefing today.
Please take time to read today's Medal of Honor recipient biography. We are watching the skies and talking to the WNBC-TV forecast center here in New York. We'll have a fine broadcast either way...indoors or out! We hope you can join us for the Tuesday edition of Nightly News tonight.
Discuss (11 comments) Email this | Link to thisI'll get to the title reference after this: between meetings, I've been allowed to break away and give you a short rundown of our plans for the evening, which will be a mixture of the following: autism, terrorism, Alzheimer's, the environment, aviation and more.
And we might just mention the end of the line for the Sopranos. While I get the fact that it's not for everyone, for those of us who love the show, it's been quite the time. The much-hashed-out ending did what it was meant to do: I have a very good friend who flatly assumed the sudden ending to represent the end of Tony's life. Others who watched assumed life goes on for Tony -- as a mobster under constant threat of indictment, as a husband, father, businessman, patient and sociopath. We now know The Man In The Member's Only Jacket is the owner of a pizza restaurant in Bucks County, Penn. who came here from Italy in 1976. I thought I examined the show in detail in my other day job -- but today there are all kinds of deconstructions on the Web -- proving again that this has been much more than just a television show for those of us who love it ... and will miss it.
Please make time to take a look at today's featured Medal of Honor recipient.
I hope you can join us tonight for the Monday edition of NBC Nightly News.
Discuss (7 comments) Email this | 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 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 thisA potentially huge medical advance is making news tonight, as is a big potential problem for the FDA. TB remains in the news, and we'll have an interesting look at the G-8 gathering in Germany from David Gregory. Mike Taibbi will get us off the air tonight with a wonderful yarn about an ordinary man with an extraordinary story.
Please check out the great Associated Press piece that just came out about the Sopranos -- I just heard Neil Cavuto on Fox -- sitting across from the beloved late Capo Bobby Bacalla -- say that this season has been "awful." I hope he's watching the same show the rest of us are. Meantime, the discussion, for the hardcore among us, continues on Slate's blog -- and wherever two or more Soprano's fans gather across America this week. We just have a few more days to go. Until we miss the show forever. Thanks for indulging me. It's almost over.
And today we profile another great Medal of Honor recipient: Pat Brady. Setting aside, if that's possible, Brady's heroics in battle -- Pat is known for his great smile, great wife, great daughter and his love of all things Notre Dame. I hope you can take a moment to read about Pat.
Back to the day job: we hope you will join us for the Wednesday edition of Nightly News (which will be pre-empted on the West Coast again tonight by the NHL finals. It will be available as an early Netcast on our Web site at 8:30 ET/5:30 PT, however).
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