Wednesday on the DailyNightly blog, and later on his newscast, NBC’s Brian Williams appealed to his viewers to share some good news.
Here’s our request: nominate people who are doing good things where you live or work.. perhaps a random or regular act of kindness in a cruel economy.
The comments section quickly filled up – 431 good news stories and counting. The show received a thousand more ideas via email. “We have more stories than we could humanly cover if we combined all three network newscasts,” Williams tells the AP’s David Bauder. “It’s hit an unbelievable nerve.”
There’s the Texas woman who helps people with Parkinson’s disease providing voice therapy on a pay it forward program; the Alabama pharmacist who gave $16,000 of his own money to his employees and asked them to donate 15% to charity and spend the rest locally; and then there’s a Maryland man who writes, “I would like to nominate you and the excellent staff at NBC who go about the business of reporting the news. The ability to report on even more diversified and interesting stories and issues, may indeed move the bar up for reporters, advertisers, and viewers alike,” writes Tom Reitz
Williams plans to read some of the letters on tonight’s broadcast (probably not Tom Reitz’) and profile some of the people next week.