Brian Douglas Williams (born May 5, 1959) is the anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News, the evening news program of the NBC television network, a position he assumed in 2004. Williams was listed among Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2007, and in 2010, a prominent media observer dubbed him "the Walter Cronkite of the 21st century."

Early life
Williams was reared in a middle-class Irish Catholic home. His father, Gordon L. Williams, was an executive vice president of the National Retail Merchants Association, in New York. During childhood, his family moved from his birthplace, Ridgewood, New Jersey, to Elmira, New York. He lived in Elmira for ten years before moving to Middletown, New Jersey, when he was in junior high school.

He graduated from Mater Dei High School, a Roman Catholic high school in the New Monmouth section of Middletown. While in high school, he was a volunteer firefighter for three years at the Middletown Township Fire Department. His first job was as a busboy at Perkins Pancake House.

After high school Wiliams attended Brookdale Community College, after which he transferred to The Catholic University of America, and then The George Washington University. He did not graduate, and instead interned with the administration of President Jimmy Carter. He now calls leaving college one of his "great regrets". Brian Williams completed a total of 18 college credits."

Nightly News
Williams became anchor of NBC Nightly News on December 2, 2004, and his first year in that post was marked by coverage of two disasters: the Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. NBC personnel felt that the program became his program (rather than predecessor Tom Brokaw's) with his coverage of the tsunami, and his reporting on Katrina, including from inside the New Orleans Superdome, was given praise by industry observers. His work helped earn NBC a Peabody Award, the Peabody committee concluding that Williams and the Nightly News staff "exemplified the highest levels of journalistic excellence in reporting on Hurricane Katrina."

Nightly News fell behind ABC's World News in the first half of 2007. Nightly News regained the lead later in the year and expanded it beginning in the fall of 2008. Williams was compared by Jon Friedman of Marketwatch to Walter Cronkite.

When Williams succeeded Tom Brokaw as anchor of NBC Nightly News, his annual salary was reported to be $8 million, and by October 2006, it had reportedly increased to $10 million.

On May 1, 2011, Williams anchored a simulcast between all NBC affiliates and MSNBC covering the death of Osama bin Laden, going on air before 11:30 pm and continuing coverage until at least 2:00 am.