ESPN host Keith Olbermann backed suspended NBC News anchor Brian Williams, suggesting exaggerations aside, Williams is a stand-up guy who cares about the facts.
“People who’ve enjoyed his newscasts, his appearances here, probably don’t know of all the people I’ve worked with in television, in news particularly, the guy who would get the most personally hurt when there was a mistake, a factual error on the air, was Brian Williams who would take it the most personally and be the most apologetic for it, who would bleed because somebody got a graphic wrong and combined two states… and his correction was longer than the actual mistake was.”
Appearing on David Letterman Tuesday, Olbermann went on to suggest the Williams controversy is more complex than viewers of pundits understand.
“There is more to this than we understand. And I don’t know what it is but I would like to think its fixable and I would like to see him back on the air and I would like to see this resolved,” he said.
Olbermann, who recently returned from a suspension after he got into an inappropriate Twitter exchange with Penn State students, said the most important thing is Williams actually reported from places like Iraq.
Explaining what his reporting from Iraq would be, Olbermann explained he’d say: “I got up into a helicopter, and I crapped my pants.”
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