(RepublicanInformer.com)- Journalist Brian Williams, who at one time was suspended after he falsified stories, has announced that he will be stepping down from the MSNBC program he anchors, and departing the network that he has worked with for almost 30 years at the end of 2021.
Williams, whose contract was set to expire at the end of the year, will not be returning to the program he anchors now, called The 11th Hour with Brian Williams.
In a memo sent on Tuesday night, MSNBC’s president, Rashida Jones, said:
“As an award-winning journalist and anchor at MSNBC and NBC News, Brian Williams has informed us he would like to take the coming months to spend time with his family. He will be signing off from The 11th Hour at the end of the year.”
Williams was once a well-respected TV news anchor. He was the lead anchor for NBC’s top-rated program The Nightly News for years. At one point a few years ago, though, he went with a series of stories that were quite misleading.
The worst of the bunch came in 2015, when he admitted on air that he lied about facing sniper fire in 2003 while he was reporting from Iraq. As a result of that admission, he was suspended by NCB for six months and also demoted from his role as the lead for The Nightly News.
He re-emerged with the company as an anchor on MSNBC doing late-night news. The network also typically relied on Williams for breaking-news coverage and big events such as elections.
But, Williams wasn’t a part of MSNBC’s coverage of the recent Virginia gubernatorial election, as Nicolle Wallace, Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow took over.
In making the announcement of his stepping away, Williams issued a statement that read:
“Following much reflection, and after 28 years with the company, I have decided to leave NBC upon the completion of my current contract in December. I have been truly blessed. I have been allowed to spend almost half of my life with one company. NBC is a part of me and always will be.”
Williams didn’t reveal any immediate plans to get behind the camera in the near future. He did, however, say:
“This is the end of a chapter and the beginning of another. There are many things I want to do, and I’ll pop up again somewhere.”
Throughout his career, Williams has often sided with the liberals, aligning with groups such as the Lincoln Project to disparage officials with the Republican Party on air.
He called Texas Senator Ted Cruz “Kremlin Cruz” just this May, accusing him of “peddling Russian propaganda.” Just one month later, he hurled insults at Republican governors Greg Abbott of Texas and Ron DeSantis of Florida.
Williams took a stab at comedy when he said of the pair:
“If Abbott wants to, say, run for president, he must be more further ensconced in a particular area of Trump’s anatomy than even Ron DeSantis of Florida.”
