Williams is best known for his ten years as anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, the evening news program of the NBC television network. Six months after Williams joined the program in December 2004, NBC News was awarded the Peabody Award for its coverage of the Hurricane Katrina story, with the award committee stating that Williams and the NBC staff displayed the "highest levels of journalistic excellence" in their reporting. In February 2015, Williams was suspended for six months, and eventually fired from the Nightly News for "misrepresent[ing] events which occurred while he was covering the Iraq War in 2003."