NBC對新聞主播布萊恩威廉姆斯降職處理

NBC is planning to announce Thursday that Brian Williams will not return to his position as the anchor of its “Nightly News” show, four months after the network suspended him for exaggerating his role in a helicopter incident in Iraq, according to two people briefed on the discussions.

兩名知情者透露，NBC將於週四宣佈陷入爭議的新聞主播布萊恩·威廉姆斯(Brian Williams)不再擔任《NBC晚間新聞》主播的決定。威廉姆斯因爲誇大自己在一次伊拉克美軍直升飛機險情中發揮的作用，已被停職了四個月。

Mr. Williams is expected to move to a new role primarily at the cable news network MSNBC, probably in a breaking-news capacity in the beginning, according to one of the people.

其中一人說，威廉姆斯將被安排新的職位，主要在MSNBC有線電視新聞網工作，一開始可能會負責即時新聞播報。

Lester Holt, who has been filling in for Mr. Williams as anchor, will take on the position permanently, one person said.

一直以來頂替威廉姆斯做主播的萊斯特·霍爾特(Lester Holt)將正式擔任晚間新聞主播的職務。

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NBC could not be reached for comment. Mr. Williams’s lawyer, Robert Barnett, declined to comment. News of the decision was first reported by .

本報無法聯繫到NBC接受採訪。威廉姆斯的律師羅伯特·巴尼特(Robert Barnett)拒絕對此置評。有關這項決定的新聞最早由CNN網站報道。

The new role is a humbling comedown for Mr. Williams, who before the controversy was one of the country’s most prominent and respected broadcast journalists.

對威廉姆斯來說，新職位是略顯寒磣的貶職。在此次爭議事件發生之前，他是全美最知名和最受尊敬的電視新聞工作者之一。

Until early February, Mr. Williams, 56, was riding high as the No. 1 nightly news anchor, drawing close to 10 million viewers a night. His popularity extended beyond the anchor’s chair; with a quick wit and engaging manner, he was a coveted speaker at dinners and panels, and a frequent celebrity guest on entertainment shows.

直到今年2月初，56歲的威廉姆斯還高居晚間新聞節目主持人的榜首，每晚有近1000萬人觀看他的節目。 他受歡迎的範疇，已經不僅限於他的主播身份。他有急智，有魅力，經常受邀在宴會和研討會上做演講，也頻繁出任娛樂節目的嘉賓。

But on his newscast on Feb. 4, Mr. Williams admitted that he had embellished his account of being on a helicopter that was hit by enemy fire in 2003, and apologized to viewers. The response put him and NBC on the defensive; military veterans took him to task, and media commentators and viewers claimed he had lost the trust so critical to a network news anchor.

不過，今年2月4日，他在自己的節目上承認，之前講述的2003年在伊拉克乘坐直升機時被敵軍火力擊中的經歷存在誇大成分，並就此向觀衆致歉。觀衆的反應使他和NBC都陷入被動。退伍軍人紛紛指責他；媒體評論人和觀衆稱他失去了對電視新聞主播而言至關重要的信任。

On Feb. 10, Mr. Williams was suspended for six months without pay.

2月10日，NBC決定對威廉姆斯停薪停職六個月。

NBC opened an investigation into Mr. Williams, and over the last several months it uncovered as many as 10 to 12 instances where he was thought to have exaggerated or fabricated accounts of his reporting, according to people with knowledge of the inquiry.

據知情人士透露，NBC對威廉姆斯展開了調查，而在過去幾個月裏，他們在他之前的報道中發現了10至12處存在誇大和杜撰嫌疑的表述。

The controversy escalated to the very top of the corporation. Stephen B. Burke, NBCUniversal’s chief executive, played a crucial role in deciding Mr. William’s fate at NBC, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.

這次爭議事件在公司內部的重要性不斷升級，連公司最高層也參與進來。據知情人士透露，NBC環球的首席執行官斯蒂芬·B·伯克(Stephen B. Burke)在決定威廉姆斯在NBC的命運的決策過程中起到了關鍵作用。

Television industry executives said that it would have been difficult for Mr. Williams to return to the anchor chair because he lost the trust not only of viewers but also of the people in NBC’s newsroom.

電視行業的高管表示，威廉姆斯將很難重返主播崗位，因爲他不僅失去了觀衆的信任，也失去了NBC新聞編輯部門同仁的信任。

Before the controversy, Mr. Williams, who became “Nightly News” anchor in 2004, succeeding Tom Brokaw, was considered one of the most trusted men not only in the news business but in the country.

威廉姆斯在2004年接任湯姆·布羅考(Tom Brokaw)成爲《NBC晚間新聞》節目的主播。此次事件之前，他不僅被認爲是新聞界最值得信信賴的人之一，而且是全國最受信賴的人之一。

In February, Mr. Williams ranked as the 23rd-most-trusted person in the country, on par with Denzel Washington, Warren E. Buffett and Robin Roberts. By May, his trust ranking had plummeted to 3,352, near the rapper Eminem and the Playboy tycoon Hugh Hefner, according to the Marketing Arm, a research firm whose celebrity index is closely watched by media and marketing executives.

根據Marketing Arm調研公司公佈的數據，今年2月，在全國名人信任度排行榜上，威廉姆斯身居23位，與丹澤爾·華盛頓(Denzel Washington)、沃倫·E·巴菲特(Warren E. Buffett)和羅賓·羅伯茨(Robin Roberts)不相上下；至5月份，他的信任度排名已經跌至3352位，與說唱歌手埃米納姆(Eminem)和《花花公子》大亨休·海夫納(Hugh Hefner)相齊平。該公司發佈的名人指數受到媒體和市場營銷高管的密切關注。

For Mr. Williams, the fact that he is staying at NBCUniversal could be interpreted as something of a victory. Many media executives inside and outside the company had thought his continued employment at NBC was untenable.

對威廉姆斯而言，今後還能留在NBC環球就可以被解讀爲小小的勝利。公司內外的許多媒體高管之前認爲，他在NBC將無立足之地。

A person close to Mr. Williams, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that his supporters saw the decision as, if not quite an exoneration, a signal that any wrongdoing investigated by NBC was not so egregious as to prevent a return.

與威廉姆斯關係密切的一名要求不具名的人士透露，他的支持者認爲，這項決定就算不能看做是對威廉姆斯的免責，也說明NBC調查出來的其他問題並沒有嚴重到讓他無法迴歸的地步。

Other NBC employees were not surprised by the controversy and said that Mr. Williams had a reputation for exaggerating stories. They said he was not widely loved in the newsroom.

其他一些NBC員工對於發生這樣的爭議事件並不感到奇怪。他們表示威廉姆斯出了名地喜歡誇大事實，而且他在新聞編輯部門裏的人緣並不太好。

The investigation was conducted in an almost legalistic fashion, said one person close to the process. Though there was one work room that had printouts of web jokes featuring Mr. Williams on the walls, the person said, the work was rigorous and detailed. It generated hundreds of pages of material, based partly on interviews with Mr. Williams’s colleagues inside NBC who had firsthand knowledge of his reporting.

據一名知情人士透露，這次調查是以一種接近法律調查的方式進行。他表示，儘管有一個辦公間的牆面上貼有打印出來的有關威廉姆斯的網絡笑話，但調查工作本身非常嚴格而詳盡。這次調查蒐集了數百頁資料，其中有部分是基於和NBC內部對威廉姆斯的報道有一手瞭解的同事的談話 。

But those who scrutinized the various allegations against Mr. Williams feared, as they were working, that their analysis might be peripheral to any decision that was made, this person said.

不過，這名人士還表示，那些對威廉姆斯受到的指控進行詳盡調查的人員在工作中就表示出擔心，覺得他們的分析可能不會對決策產生多大影響。

Richard Esposito, the senior executive producer for investigations who was leading the effort, did not respond to calls and messages seeking comment Wednesday evening.

牽頭進行此次調查的資深執行製作人理查德·埃斯波西託(Richard Esposito)沒有接聽本報在週三晚上撥打的幾次電話，也沒有迴應請求置評的多條訊息。

Finding an appropriate role for Mr. Williams at NBC posed a challenge, television executives said. Mr. Williams built a reputation as a master storyteller and news reader but wasn’t known for his interviewing skills or journalism chops.

電視行業的高管表示，給威廉姆斯在NBC內部換一個合適的職位，是個不小的挑戰。威廉姆斯以擅長講故事和解讀新聞而出名，但他的採訪技巧或挖掘新聞的能力並不出色。

Television executives said that NBC would stand to benefit by keeping Mr. Williams from going to a competitor and talking publicly about the controversy.

高管們表示，讓威廉姆斯留下而非跳槽到競爭對手那裏，避免他公開談論這次爭議事件，對NBC更爲有益。

In the coming months, MSNBC is expected to introduce more hard news and more reporting from NBC News talent during daytime hours, which would be something of a break from its more opinion-based programming during the evening, according to a person briefed on the plans.

知情人士透露，接下來幾個月，MSNBC計劃在白天時段引入更多硬新聞和來自NBC新聞臺的報道，以求和主要以觀點類節目爲主的晚間時段形成反差。

His departure from the anchor chair leaves NBC in an awkward position for the national newscast. In December, Mr. Williams, 55, signed a new five-year contract reportedly worth $10 million a year, and the network was not expecting to have to replace him so soon. No one in the news ranks was being groomed as a successor.

威廉姆斯離開主播職位讓NBC在全國性新聞方面陷入尷尬境地。去年12月，55歲的威廉姆斯和NBC簽訂了爲期五年的合同，據稱年薪達1000萬美元（約合6200萬元人民幣）。電視臺沒料到這麼快就要找人替代他。論新聞資歷，也沒有合適的接班人選。

While Mr. Holt has mostly held steady in the ratings, the network has been in a neck-in-neck race for viewers with ABC’s 6:30 p.m. national newscast.

儘管霍爾特基本保持了穩定的收視率，但NBC一直在和ABC晚6點半檔的全國性新聞節目激烈地爭奪觀衆。

The crisis surrounding Mr. Williams’s embellishments is another blow for the NBC News division.

此外，因爲威廉姆斯誇大事實引發的這次危機並不是NBC新聞部門近期遭受的第一次衝擊。

In the last year, it replaced David Gregory as host of “Meet the Press,” and fired an executive hired to oversee the “Today” show after only 10 weeks. NBC Universal’s cable news channel, MSNBC, also has been saddled by sharply declining ratings.

去年，他們替換了《會見媒體》(Meet the Press)的主持人戴維·格雷戈裏(David Gregory)，並解僱了一名負責《今日》(Today)節目的主管——在其入職僅十週後。NBC環球旗下的有線新聞頻道MSNBC也一直受困於急劇下降的收視率。

In March, NBC hired Andrew Lack to lead its news division as part of a broader shake-up at the top of the management ranks. Mr. Lack previously was president of NBC News from 1993 until 2001.

NBC正在進行更大範圍的最高管理層的人事變動。今年3月，NBC聘用安德魯·拉克(Andrew Lack)領導其新聞部門。此前，拉克曾在1993至2001年間擔任NBC新聞臺的總裁。