This is a pretty serious story, but just take a moment and realize that the evening news broadcasts across all networks have become pretty meaningless. Evening news shows have been hemorrhaging viewership for the past decade (and longer). These days, the news anchors are fighting over the senior citizen demographic, basically. And these days, NBC’s Brian Williams is being beaten in the ratings regularly by ABC’s David Muir (Muir is my mom’s favorite anchor, just FYI). And this story will not help.

On last night’s evening news broadcast, Brian Williams had to take a moment and set the record straight about a claim he made in 2003 – and continued to make since 2003 – about coming under fire while reporting in Iraq at the start of the Iraq War.

“NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams last night had to make the humiliating admission that he was not aboard a helicopter hit by RPG fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a false claim that he made and was repeated by the network for years.

Williams — who’d claimed he was in a chopper forced down by a rocket-propelled grenade 12 years ago — repeated the story on Friday’s newscast during a tribute for a retired sergeant major.

“The story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq, when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG,” Williams said on Friday’s show. “Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded and kept alive by an armor-mechanized platoon from the US Army 3rd Infantry.”

He was busted when vet Lance Reynolds commented on the “Nightly News” Facebook page, where the clip was posted, “Sorry, dude, I don’t remember you being on my aircraft. I do remember you walking up about an hour after we had landed to ask me what had happened.”

…Williams claimed on Facebook that he had confused events: “I spent much of the weekend thinking I’d gone crazy. I feel terrible about making this mistake.” Stars and Stripes, which broke the story, reported that a different Chinook was hit by rockets and “the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft .?.?. Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter.”

Stars and Stripes quotes people from the scene who recall NBC reporting that Williams was aboard the attacked chopper. Mike O’Keeffe, who was a gunner on the damaged Chinook, said, “I can’t believe he is still telling this false narrative.” Williams admitted on-air Wednesday, “I want to apologize .?.?. This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran.”

[From Page Six]

I’m including the video of his apology below. What do you think? Was it an honest mix-up in the heat of a war? Or was it something grosser and more sinister? I think there are two separate issues – one, Williams was trying to honor a military man that he knew, but instead of talking about the man’s accomplishments, Brian made the segment about what the guy had done for him (the reporter should never be the story, Brian). And in describing what the guy did for him, Brian repeated a lie that never should have been told in the first place. This is a HUGE disappointment. No lie. I really thought Williams was better than this.

Photos courtesy of Fame/Flynet and WENN.