Ebenezer Williams

I would like to pitch an idea to NBC: A television adaptation of Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" starring Brian Williams. In this version, NBC News anchor Ebenezer Williams will be visited by the Ghosts of NBC News past, in the form of John Chancellor, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. They will take Ebenezer Williams on an eerie trip through the history of NBC News and implore him to change his current broadcast or suffer the ghostly consequences. They will tell him that pandering to viewers with fluff pieces devoid of news content does not meet the proud tradition of NBC News. They will tell him that ignoring important stories like the election in India or the conflict in Sri Lanka in favor of pointless stories about pink dolphins or skateboarding dogs is not what NBC News stands for. They will tell him that he is devaluing the NBC News brand by doing "news stories" promoting sponsors' products, and that accepting sponsorship money from Pfizer or GlaxoSmithKline is an unacceptable conflict of interest. They will tell Ebenezer Williams that if he continues to broadcast a second-rate newscast, he will be condemned for all eternity to wander the halls of the NBC News studios as a ghostly apparition weighed down by the heavy chains of his journalistic lightweightedness.