A life threatening situation for Brian Williams. Fortunately the danger passes and the NBC News anchorman remains friends with his rescuer to this day. If that sounds like his story about his helicopter supposedly being hit by an RPG in Iraq, a fable that he was forced to apologize for, as well as his subsequent rescue by an army sergeant, it also sounds eerily similar to a story he told about Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.
The SooperMexican blog made the discovery of Brian Williams' Katrina rescue story. It remains to be seen how authentic this story is but SooperMexican has already noted some holes in it. You can hear Williams at about the four minute make of this video tell his Iraq, I mean Katrina, story:
My week, two weeks there, was not helped by the fact that I accidentally ingested some of the floodwater. I became very sick with dysentery, our hotel was overrun with gangs, I was rescued from the stairwell of a five star hotel in New Orleans by a young police officer we are friends to this day.
SooperMexican looks upon this story with some skepticism:
But in the Dateline special where he recounts his experiences 5 years later, there’s no mention of the story. He says that the police were in the Sheraton in New Orleans, and that his camera crew were allowed to film outside. But that’s it, he doesn’t even mention being in any other hotel. How could a hotel used as a staging area for policemen be “overrun with gangs”?
This is definitely not conclusive evidence that he lied about the attack, but it had many elements that are the same as his Iraq RPG story, which should cast doubt on any other story he speaks to that isn’t corroborated by someone else.
Exit question: How many other stories did Brian Williams also "misremember?"
