NBC News: Brian Williams embellished stories many times

A months-long internal investigation of Brian Williams by NBC News has turned up 11 instances in which the anchorman publicly embellished details of his reporting exploits, according to a person familiar with details of the probe.

NBC undertook the examination of Mr. Williams’ statement after he apologized in early February for saying on “NBC Nightly News” that a military helicopter in which he was traveling at the start of the Iraq War had been damaged by rocket fire. His account was challenged by soldiers who were on the flight, leading to a furor that prompted NBC to suspend Mr. Williams for six months without pay and to investigate other statements he has made.

The Iraq claim was one of the 11 suspect statements that a team of NBC News journalists has identified during the inquiry, said the individual, who asked not to be identified because he isn’t authorized to talk about an internal matter.

The investigators, led by NBC News’ senior executive producer, Richard Esposito, also have raised doubts about Mr. Williams’ comments about his experiences covering Israel’s military action against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. In an interview with a studentrun television station at Fairfield University in Connecticut in 2007, Mr. Williams said he saw rockets passing “just beneath” the Israeli helicopter in which he was traveling. But Mr. Williams gave a less harrowing account of the same trip in an NBC News blog a year earlier.

NBC executives met in a conference room Thursday morning at the network’s Rockefeller Center headquarters in New York City for a briefing about the investigation. The meeting included the three executives likely to determine Mr. Williams’ fate at the network: NBC Universal chief executive Steve Burke, NBC News chairman Andrew Lack and NBC News president Deborah Turness.

An NBC News spokesman declined comment Friday. Mr. Williams’ attorney, Robert Barnett of Washington, D.C., also declined to comment.

It’s not clear when, or even if, Mr. Esposito’s findings about Mr. Williams will be made public. Although the investigation could be a critical factor in whether NBC decides to bring Mr. Williams back, it could also remain confidential as a condition of any potential severance agreement, an NBC journalist said Friday.

NBC newsman Lester Holt has taken over anchoring “Nightly News.”