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On February 24 - ten years after replacing Brian Williams - Lester Holt announced that he would step down from his position as the NBC Nightly News anchor in the summer of 2025. Meanwhile, he will continue to anchor NBC's Dateline, a program he has presided over since 2011, Fox 4 News reported.
Lester Holt joined NBC Nightly News in 2015 after its former anchor, Brian Williams, stepped down amid controversy. The controversy stemmed from Williams' exaggeration of a 2003 incident in which he claimed to have been on a Chinook helicopter that came under ground fire during the Iraq invasion.
As multiple military personnel disputed Brian's version of events in February 2015, the anchor issued a social media apology, which undermined viewers' trust in him.
Brian Williams was suspended for six months without pay on February 6, 2015, and hasn't returned to NBC Nightly News since.
Brian Williams first recounted his Chinook helicopter story in 2003
In March 2003, Brian Williams appeared in a special edition of NBC's Dateline and told anchor Tom Brokaw that he was riding in a military helicopter that was forced to land while flying over Iraq. Once on the ground, Williams learned that another helicopter took damage from an RPG, narrowly avoiding complete destruction.
Ten years later, on March 4, 2013, Williams appeared on Alec Baldwin's podcast Here's the Thing, where the Iraq incident was brought up once more. Brian said on the podcast:
"I've done some ridiculously stupid things under that banner, like being in a helicopter I had no business being in in Iraq, with rounds coming into the airframe."
Weeks later, on March 26, Brian Williams was invited on The Late Show with David Letterman, where he retold the story differently, saying that two of the four helicopters in their squad were hit by ground fire from RPG and AK-47, including the one he was riding in.
Two years later, in January 2015, Brian covered a ceremony honoring soldier Tim Terpak, who had provided ground security during Williams' time in Iraq. During the coverage, the anchor said, "the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG."
A month later, multiple soldiers who were in the Chinook during the 2003 Iraq incident raised concern about Brian Williams' account of the events on social media.
The anchor responded to the growing controversy in an apology post on Facebook, writing:
"Because I have no desire to fictionalize my experience (we all saw it happened the first time) and no need to dramatize events as they actually happened, I think the constant viewing of the video showing us inspecting the impact area — and the fog of memory over 12 years — made me conflate the two, and I apologize."
In an interview with the military news organization Stars and Stripes, Brian elaborated on his apology, adding:
"No, we never came under direct enemy fire to the aircraft."
On February 7, 2015, Williams announced that he was taking a leave of absence from NBC Nightly News, writing:
"It has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news, due to my actions," he writes. "Upon my return, I will continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us."
As Brian took his leave from the program, Lester Holt, who had been filling in as a weekend anchor, stepped in to replace him.
The reason behind Lester Holt's departure from NBC Nightly News hasn't been revealed
While Lester Holt hasn't offered any specific reason for his departure from the evening show, NBC reports that he wrote to the staff:
"A smile comes to my face when I think that with Nightly News, and Dateline, I have now anchored two of the most successful and iconic television news program in broadcast history."
Per Fox 4 News, NBC News has not yet announced a replacement for Holt. Janelle Rodriguez, Executive Vice President of NBC News, wrote a message to staff, saying:
"He has led the network during some of the country’s most fraught and challenging times in the past decade. Quite simply, Lester is the beating heart of this news organization."
Following his departure from NBC in 2015, Brian Williams took a job hosting a show on its sister cable channel, MSNBC.
