Brian Williams 'Misremembering' is Limiting MSNBC's Katrina Anniversary Coverage

If you have watched any news coverage over the last few days then surely you realize that his weekend marks the ten year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Back in 2005 the monster storm wrecked havoc on New Orleans and left the ninth ward only slightly intact. Most news coverage has sent anchors back to the once-devastated area to see how things have been rebuilt and sadly, in many cases, how they have not. When NBC opened a full investigation of Brian Williams reporting they quickly realized that he had a bad habit of "misremembering" many prominent stories and embellishing to make himself part of the drama. This included his coverage of Katrina and MSNBC's programming is now affected by that.

The network has struggled with ratings and credibility issues over the last few years and while some sweeping changes have been made in recent months, they are also stuck with Williams. Rather than NBC firing their fallen evening news anchor they instead have shuffled him over to MSNBC, which quite frankly, won't help their credibility issues.

According to a report by Page Six, "MSNBC is sensitive about Brian Williams and his reporting on Katrina. None of their anchors are there this weekend. Brian’s mid-September start date was carefully scheduled to avoid the Katrina anniversary, among other considerations.” Williams had spoken of seeing a dead body float past his hotel, the Ritz-Carlton in the French Quarter. He said that gangs had “overrun” the place and claimed that he got dysentery and the hotel had no medicine. But then-manager Myra ­DeGersdorff said the Ritz-Carlton was secure, there had been a medical unit on-site, and told the Washington Post, “Maybe he misremembered . . . It wasn’t impossible he could have encountered a body, but I don’t think it was in the French Quarter."

Supposedly the network is already ticked that they are stuck with Williams. Having to not report on such a significant story in American history has to be making the already bad blood even worse, don't you think?

Brian Williams Off Suspension, Heading to MSNBC in September

Brian Williams six month suspension without pay from NBC quietly ended last week. Back in February the popular news man was removed from the NBC Nightly News anchor spot because he was caught and later admitted to embellishing a story about being shot down in a plane in Iraq.  The network imposed a six month suspension and when they did some digging NBC turned up several other instances where Williams was caught being dishonest. His lies eventually cost him the coveted top seat at the network but Williams somehow still does have a job waiting for him over at the always-struggling MSNBC.

Rather than firing him outright, NBC news honcho Andy Lack instead decided to create a position for Williams at the sister-network. Beginning in September he will be in charge of breaking news segments for MSNBC. While Williams should be thanking his lucky stars that he has a job, rumor has it that MSNBC is none to happy to be stuck with him. The network's ratings are dismal and they are struggling with credibility issues as a whole so bringing in Williams, with his reputation in shambles hardly seems the best move.

Still, Lack is hoping that Williams presence will somehow not only steady the ratings, but also prompt people to tune in to watch his exclusive coverage of important breaking events. Do you think that Williams still has that kind of power? Or will his credibility always be called into question after his past chronic lying on camera?