NBC's Brian Williams Apologizes to Arsenio Hall
It’s funny how quickly liberals are willing to apologize when one of their own is upset with them. On Wednesday’s Nightly News NBC’s Brian Williams said he was sorry to Arsenio Hall for leaving him out of their overview of the late-night talk show scene. Since journalists are usually loathe to admit their mistakes, the on-air apology is a rare event. So Williams threw in a few more apologies to TBS talk show host Pete Holmes, the state of New Hampshire and the city of Philadelphia.
For his part, Hall accepted Williams’ apology during his monologue on Wednesday night’s show.
The following excerpt is from the February 18 edition of The Arsenio Hall Show:
ARSENIO HALL: A lot of people apparently called NBC last night on my behalf. And it worked. It worked because, well we crashed the switchboard. And tonight Brian Williams ran a story on his newscast. It was really cool. They included me.
[Begin clip from February 19 NBC Nightly News]
BRIAN WILLIAMS: And one more thing here. In our story this week about Jimmy Fallon joining the fray among all the late-night talk shows out there we showed this graphic, which is incomplete. Among others it left off The Pete Holmes Show on TBS and it excluded Arsenio Hall’s syndicated talk show. Arsenio is a late night veteran and he took us to task on his own show. He even urged his audience members to call our newsroom.
So, in apologizing to Arsenio we just wanted to point out at least your in good company here. Last July we left the state of New Hampshire off the map and had to apologize to a U.S. senator. Just last night, on this broadcast, we renamed the City of Brotherly Love - Philadelpia. So chalk it up to being on the air at 4am in the morning in Russia. But it won’t happen again.
[End clip]
HALL: That was cool. Yes. And I know you all watch Brian doing the news at some point, but you’ve probably seen him on talk shows. He’s a very funny guy and that was a cool way to do that. Thanks Brian! I appreciate it.
— Geoffrey Dickens is Deputy Research Director at the Media Research Center. Follow Geoffrey Dickens on Twitter.
