Brian Douglas Williams (born May 5, 1959) is an American journalist at MSNBC, formerly serving as the NBC News network's chief anchor of NBC Nightly News, former reporter, and now host of its cable weeknight news program, "The 11th Hour with Brian Williams". From 2004 to 2015, he was the anchor and managing editor of "NBC Nightly News", the evening news program on NBC. In 2005, NBC News was awarded the Peabody Award for its coverage of Hurricane Katrina, and Williams accepted the award on behalf of the organization. In February 2015, Williams was suspended for six months from "NBC Nightly News" for "misrepresent[ing] events which occurred while he was covering the Iraq War in 2003", and on June 18, 2015, he was demoted to breaking news anchor for MSNBC.