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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It's a cliché to say that a devastated area looks like a bomb hit it. And to say that New Orleans' Lower Ninth Ward looks like a bomb hit it would, in fact, be a cliché. It would also be wrong. Likening this to a bombing would be an insult to Katrina and its victims. Katrina's destruction, and the collateral psychological damage it inflicted on an entire city, will be of far greater consequence than that of any conventional bomb.
For two nights this week, NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams broadcast from New Orleans, on Wednesday night from the Lower Ninth. It was my first visit to the Lower Ninth, though I had seen it many times. In the three months since Katrina hit, I have read or edited literally hundreds of scripts on New Orleans and watched many more pieces on the air, but nothing can prepare you for what awaits you as you cross the St. Claude Bridge over the Industrial Canal and descend into the Lower Ninth.
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Link to thisWe get a lot of e-mail. On a typical day we receive about 500 e-mails, and it pretty much breaks down into three categories. We get a fairly large chunk from liberals, many of whom accuse us of being lapdogs for the Bush administration, and wonder openly when we gave up our duty to ask tough questions and be journalists. We get a somewhat larger chunk from conservatives, many of whom question our patriotism and wonder openly whether we wouldn't be more comfortable living in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And we get yet another large chunk from people not guided by ideology, who simply ask, "Why don't you air more good news?" Now that's an interesting question, and journalists, who are among the most defensive people I know, tend to have a fairly defensive answer, and it is that we're not in the business of reporting that all the planes landed safely today. News, sadly, is often bad, and we are generally more concerned with bringing viewers the news we think they need to know, not the news they want to know.
Back to our mail. Throw in a few story suggestions, an e-mail campaign ("Why aren't you covering fill-in-the-blank?") and an "attaboy" or two and that about does it. Frankly, we don't get nearly as many "attaboys" as "what-were-you-thinking?" e-mails because, I suppose, people are more inclined to write when they're upset, and that's just fine. We want to hear what you have to say, and to be fair, our critics often have a point. We really are listening. But, yes, I've often thought it would be nice to get a little more encouraging mail. Put another way, I've been eager to hear some good news.
And then came "Making a Difference."
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