Embattled NBC Anchor Brian Williams is facing fresh scrutiny over accounts of a trip he made to Israel in 2006,
The Washington Post reported.
In a 2007 interview, Williams recalled riding in an Israeli military helicopter that flew just above rockets fired by Hezbollah, but never mentioned the close encounter when he wrote about the trip on an NBC News blog in July 2006.
"There were Katyusha rockets passing just beneath the helicopter I was riding in," he told a student interviewer from Fairfield University.
But in the blog he said he was riding along with a high-ranking general in the Israeli Defense Forces at 1,500 feet, and that the rocket fire was happening on the ground below, making no mention of weapon fire coming close to the aircraft.
On Saturday, the anchorman suspended himself for several days from hosting "NBC Nightly News" as the network probed further into his
false claims about being on a Chinook helicopter in Iraq that was brought down by rocket fire.
The announcement also came on the heels of questions about the
accuracy of his reporting about his experiences during Hurricane Katrina, in which he claimed he saw a body float by his hotel room. Several news outlets have noted that there was no flooding in that area in the 2005 storm.
Former NBC Universal boss Bob Wright came to the defense of Williams on Monday,
telling the New York Post that if NBC News had problems with some of Williams' accounts outside the anchor's chair, it should have raised those issues at the time.
"Nobody wants to see NBC News damaged and if [news division brass] really had some issues, they should have confronted him at the appropriate time," Wright said. "If you read that everyone knew about [the exaggerations], that no-one would have approached him? Everybody needs help, they should have approached him."
Wright, who stepped down as chairman in 2006, has said he is hoping to see Williams on air again within a matter of days.
"The substance of what he's [talked about] is true," Wright told the Post.
NBC is currently conducting an internal investigation.
"This thing should be over and I hope he's back on air in a few days," Wright said, according to the Post.
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