Topic: NBC Anchor To Baghdad, The First Trip Since ABC's

New York Times
March 5, 2007
Pg. C5

By Bill Carter
The NBC News anchor Brian Williams arrived in Baghdad yesterday, the first network news anchor to travel to Baghdad since Bob Woodruff, who was then the co-anchor of ABC News, was severely injured by a roadside bomb in January 2006. Mr. Williams will start what is planned to be a week of reporting and anchoring NBC’s evening newscast from Iraq.
The timing, he said, related to the Bush administration’s deciding to send in more American troops. “The recent change in the tempo of the violence and the decision to send more U.S. troops were both major factors in my decision,” Mr. Williams wrote in his blog.
His trip also comes one week after the NBC “Nightly News” fell behind ABC in a monthlong ratings comparison for the first time in 11 years. But Steve Capus, the president of NBC News, said in a telephone interview that the first conversations about this trip took place late last year. Mr. Williams and Mr. Capus said that the move required months of planning and many logistical arrangements for Mr. Williams and the crew that will accompany him.
Allison Gollust, the spokeswoman for NBC News, said the news division was especially sensitive to any suggestion that it would use a trip like this for ratings purposes, saying, “it’s utter nonsense and beyond offensive for anyone to think we would put people in harm’s way for the sake of ratings.”
Mr. Capus added that the network had considered all the safety questions before the decision was made to send Mr. Williams, who will travel with a retired Army general, Wayne Downing. “You can’t guarantee 100 percent safety in Iraq,” Mr. Capus said yesterday. “But we have taken lots of precautions.”
Mr. Williams underscored that he was fully aware of what had happened to Mr. Woodruff and Kimberly Dozier, a CBS correspondent who was also severely injured in Iraq. “I’d be lying to say that the wounds suffered by my friends Bob Woodruff and Kimberly Dozier didn’t weigh heavily on my mind,” Mr. Williams wrote.