In a sane world he would have been fired last week.
Via WAPO
The ultimate decision to suspend Williams for six months was made after an internal investigation unearthed other “instances of exaggeration,” according to a person familiar with intense behind-the-scenes discussions between network officials and Williams.
During those talks, Williams failed to secure a promise that he can return to the anchor chair he has occupied for the past decade, according to two network sources, who like others interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive personnel issue.
The suspension represents a stunning fall for Williams, whose wry, likable style helped propel his “Nightly News” broadcast to the top of the network-news ratings race and also made him a popular guest on late-night talk shows.[…]
NBC officials were suspicious of the on-air apology, particularly the anchor’s statement that he had “made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago,” a network source said.
“Ninety percent of the people knew it was not misremembering, it was making it up,” the source said.[…]
Williams had made several questionable claims in interviews and a documentary: He witnessed a suicide at the Superdome in New Orleans, saw a body floating by his hotel in the French Quarter and had contracted dysentery from accidentally ingesting floodwater.
Throughout Thursday, Williams was pounded by bloggers and newspaper columnists, who noted that he hadn’t reported the suicide when he was on assignment in New Orleans, that the French Quarter had largely remained dry during the hurricane and that there were no reported outbreaks of dysentery.
But inside NBC, the Iraq fabrication was seen as the most damaging. “When helicopter crew members get shot down and you attach yourself to what they went through, it’s pretty outrageous,” a person familiar with internal discussions said.