Branch Rickey, the great major league baseball executive, used to call trading or releasing a bad player “addition by subtraction” – i.e. the player\’s departure resulted in the team being better.
This phenomenon seems to be at work in the NBC news department…where, according to Brian Stelter\’s article for CNN, it is being reported that, regardless of whether Brian Williams stays or does not stay with the network in some capacity, he will no longer anchor NBC Nightly News.
Personally, I liked Brian Williams. He was upbeat, affable, and reported at least as capably as his counterparts at CBS and ABC. The network certainly wasn\’t complaining about its ratings either.
But there were too many lies about too many incidents for NBC to allow him back to that anchor chair.
And – this is the best part for NBC – his replacement, Lester Holt, has done a good job of holding that audience since he took over…supposedly on an interim basis but, more than likely, as Williams\’ permanent replacement.
I\’ve always thought of Mr. Holt as a major asset, possibly the major asset, NBC news has. Assuming he gets this job, I\’m sorry about how it happened, but think he is the right person for it, and wish him well.
