NBC news anchor Brian Williams is on a roll
Times are both heady and tense these days for NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams. In recent weeks, he scored an exclusive interview with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, delivered the commencement speech at Tulane University, and learned that he had the season's top-rated newscast among adults 25 to 54. But this spring, ABC's "World News With Charles Gibson" has sometimes surpassed NBC in the ratings, setting tongues wagging in the TV news industry.
Williams anchored a broadcast from Boston last week. We caught up with him on the roof of Boston University's School of Management to talk about ratings, stories, and the changing face of TV news.
Q In this business, ratings are king, and everyone gets very exercised about them. How does that affect your mindset and your job?
A I think -- and this is going to sound schmaltzy -- there's nothing wrong with a good old-fashioned dogfight at 30,000 feet over this country. We go up against two excellent opponents every night whose job it is to beat our brains out. We're all covering the same stories. And I think if we're right, our version of those stories will be better. I've said for years we've never toasted winning ratings in our newsroom. It's a cyclical business. As long as we're talking about a fight over viewers for network evening newscasts, which are still by far and away the number one source of news in the United States, tell me how that's bad.
Q I wanted to talk to you about how the anchor role has changed. We're all multiplatform now . . .
A I just left writing my blog. If you told me three years ago that I would have, in effect, a local newspaper column due, stream-of-consciousness, I wouldn't have believed you. If you would have told me that I'd come to depend on writing it every day as an accouterment and an accompaniment to the broadcast, I wouldn't have believed you. It's a very lively place and people e-mail me and we read them all. It's a forum. If the audience is moving beyond the traditional evening experience of watching a television seated in their dens, we'll move with them, and we have.
Q ABC recently changed its newscast's title from "World News Tonight" to just "World News." Is that going to happen to NBC? The "NBC Whenever News"?
A Well, since we have the "Today" show to handle morning news, and since we're on 24/7 on MSNBC, we still figure our day's work makes its debut at night. So we'll keep it where it is for the time being.
Q You've been back to New Orleans a lot since Hurricane Katrina, but nationwide, it feels like a forgotten story. Why do you think that is?
A Every time I go back, invariably we get hate mail saying, "Why are you guys on this crusade, when are you going to give up on New Orleans?" People saying it's about government handouts, people finding any angle they can. So it takes all kinds. We, at great expense, opened a bureau because we have staked this claim to this story and this city and the region.
Q Tony Blair recently gave you an unusual amount of time and openness. How did that come about?
A Let me unabashedly localize this by saying that, like [Red Sox pitcher Jonathan] Papelbon, I watched films. I watched, in effect, scouting films of how others had approached the prime minister. And I read through every available interview. And decided to come at him a certain way on different questions that would elicit the best answers. I think we had a comfort level.
Q Did you know him beforehand?
A No. No prior relationship with the prime minister. I've traveled with [Blair's likely successor] Gordon Brown, I've reported on him in Africa. And this will be such an interesting era. I watched Question Time this weekend. I'm a C - SPAN addict, so Sunday nights, I always try to catch Questions. It's so endlessly interesting. And I felt a comfort level with Blair. As always, though, with interviews in the Internet age, the e-mail was very split the next day: "I thought you did an effective interview," or "You were disrespectful to the man who's been America's greatest partner in the war in Iraq." It's all in the eyes of the beholder. The difference these days is, we hear from the beholders.
Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com. For more on TV visit boston.com/ae/tv/blog. 