NBC News On Paris Attack Reporting Error: Intel “Turned Out Not To Be Correct”

A day after falsely reporting that one of the suspects in the Paris attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo had been killed and two others arrested, NBC News tonight finally addressed its 

dramatic error on-air – though once again the network didn’t take responsibility itself. “Starting overnight and into today, we’ve been correcting something we first reported here,” said

anchor Brian Williams near the beginning of the East Coast broadcast of the NBC Nightly News. “We were told by not just one but two senior U.S. intelligence officials that this manhunt had

ended last night with all three suspects either dead or captured. And while these sources have been reliable in our previous reporting, the intel they passed along to us last night turned

out not to be correct.”

The on-air remarks by the anchor were similar to the statement the network put out late last night after it became clear NBC News had been wrong in its reporting — putting the weight on the

shoulders of the sources not the judgment of the newsroom. “As soon as it became evident that our sources doubted their information, we immediately updated our reporting across all platforms

and continue to do so as this fast-moving story unfolds,” said the Deborah Turness-led news unit late Wednesday.

Perhaps fearing a repeat of CNN’s big goof in April 2013 reporting an arrest in the Boston Marathon bombing, other outlets like the Jeff Zucker-run cabler were hesitant to make similar

claims. As the hours passed and there was no confirmation of the NBC report, the network began to slowly walk back their “scoop” – though they did mention it on the East Coast broadcast.

However, that began to change afterward. Appearing on MSNBC around 5 PM PT yesterday, Pete Williams said, “to be fair here, we just don’t know exactly what the situation is in France.” Not

long afterwards, on a posting on the NBC News website, he said his sources “later said the information that was the basis of that account could not be confirmed.” On the West Coast broadcast

of the NBC Nightly News, reporter Bill Neely live from Paris told anchor Williams that “senior U.S. counterterrorism officials” now “can’t be certain of this or of the status of any of the

suspects.”

Interestingly, it was a report by Pete Williams that followed Brian Williams’ not really mea culpa. The Justice correspondent was reporting on how security had been beefed up at French

diplomatic operations in the U.S.