Noah Davis of brother blog FishbowlNY attended last night’s today’s Peabody Awards, where Brian Williams was slated to present the awards.
But Williams, just back from Afghanistan, was spending time with his NBC family mourning the death of his colleague Tim Russert. Instead, CBS’ Lesley Stahl filled in.
Stahl paid tribute to Russert in her opening speech.
Williams issued a statement for his absence:
I hope you can understand the degree to which our NBC News family is hurting right now. This morning represents my first opportunity to see my friends and co-workers and speak with our staff, as I just returned from Afghanistan a few hours ago. Of course, what makes this so sad has a lot to do with what the Peabodys represent: we have lost a great practitioner of our craft. We’ve lost a great friend, a great man, and some of us have lost a partner. My congratulations to this year’s recipients, my thanks to Lesley for being there — and may God bless Tim Russert.