NEW YORK — Brian Williams said the months since his suspension from NBC News had been like torture, and a come-clean interview with colleague Matt Lauer on the "Today" show must surely have felt like an extension.
The humbled anchorman told Lauer in an interview that aired Friday that he let his ego get the better of him in telling stories that exaggerated his role in news reporting and that he intends to make the most of his second chance. But he admitted he had trouble accepting his punishment — being stripped of his job as "Nightly News" anchor and assigned to reporting news at MSNBC — although he's now come to terms with it.
By the end of Friday's televised portion of the interview, a line of perspiration ran down Williams' face.
He said he was always careful with his words on the job, but "after work, when I got out of that building, when I got out of that realm, I used a double standard. Something changed. I was sloppier. I said things that weren't true."
He was suspended for falsely saying that a helicopter he flew in while reporting on the Iraq War in 2003 had been hit by enemy fire, although a subsequent NBC investigation turned up other incidents of embellishment, most during talk show appearances. NBC hasn't released its internal report on what it found, and Williams declined to address other incidents in the interview.
On the Iraq incident, he noted: "I told that story correctly for years before I told it incorrectly. I was not trying to mislead people. That to me is a huge difference."
Asked by Lauer whether he knew when he told the story on "Nightly News" that it was untrue, Williams said no. "It came from a bad place," he said. "It came from a sloppy choice of words. I told stories that were not true over the years, looking back it is very clear. I never intended to. It got mixed up. It just turned around in my mind."
He said he had to have been driven by ego. "I had to be sharper, funnier, quicker than anybody else, put myself closer to the action," he said.
