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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So we're neatly moved into our new digs at the White House Conference Center across the street from the White House. The booths and furniture are squeaky clean -- give it a week or so though - the space is a millimeter or so larger than our previous home, but there are some problems.
The briefing room where Press Secretary Tony Snow does his daily session with reporters is slightly bigger, but acoustically it's noisier. So today -- twice during his Q&A -- Snow abruptly stopped in mid-sentence, gazed to the back of the room toward the area where camera crews are positioned, and above the banter asked, "Guys, can you hold it down?"
Nothing was said about points off for lack of class participation.
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President Bush waves after starting the engine on a Harley while touring Harley Davidson Vehicle Operations in York, Pa. The man applauding, right, is Harley Davidson President and CEO Jim Ziemer. Photo by Kevin Lamarque/REUTERS.
Maybe it's the speed, the leather or the vroom factor, but there's a certain attraction between recent presidents and Harley Davidson motorcycles. Both Reagan and Clinton visited this factory in York, Pa., and today it was President George W. Bush's turn.
The congressman representing this district, Todd Platts, R-York Co., explained to a local newspaper that the White House wanted to do this event. "They raised it with us about two weeks ago, that they were looking to do an economic event in York... and were looking at Harley-Davidson," Platts said.
Discuss (10 comments) Email this | Link to thisTomorrow, the tattered seats that supported the bottoms of so many White House journalists will be ripped up and carted off. Shortly, the booths where we work will be disassembled, the grungy carpet that through the years has been a depository for cigarette butts, spilled coffee and who knows what else will be ripped up from the floor and given a decent burial.
We're talking about the White House briefing room -- not the spiffy one seen on West Wing or Commander in Chief -- but the REAL one where we work. After years of neglect and years of history, stating tomorrow a nine-month renovation project will transform this tiny place into something which at least will be a lot more user friendly, modern and cleaner if those of us in the White House press corps manage to keep it that way.
Discuss (0 comments) Email this | Link to thisI'm overwhelmed by the volume of response to my thoughts about the toppling of the American Elm on the White House grounds during the storms that pummeled the Washington area earlier this week [LINK]. All I can say is that my note must have touched a collective nerve nationwide, with people reading into my comments issues about politics and presidents, patriotism, the environment and our national heritage. It just reinforces my belief that collective forums like this serve a real need in the complex world of the 21st century. The spectrum is wide and your thoughts in it are very important.
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Photo by Ron Edmonds, Associated Press
A tree toppled at our house last night. It lay still and dormant, its branches no longer full of happy congregations. This isn't back at the Kretman home in a Washington suburb, but at the house I work at for NBC News --- the White House. The tree -- a 140-year-old American Elm with a history that goes back into the 19th century -- survived rain, snow and political winds nearly all the way back to Abraham Lincoln. Limbs from its likeness appear on the back of the $20 bill.
Today, U.S. National Park Service employees busily performed the last acts -- cutting off branches and the trunk, lugging them away in big dump trucks. It was sad to see the end of a living piece of American history -- a reminder that there is no immortality in Washington, D.C., especially at the White House.
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