Piers Morgan: Brian Williams ‘now the news anchor I would trust most’

The rest of the world may be looking at NBC news anchor Brian Williams with skeptical eyes — but not Piers Morgan.

In fact, the former CNN host and current editor-at-large for the Daily Mail Online now regards Mr. Williams — who was just outed for lying about being shot down while covering the Iraq War — as the most trusted news source in America, he wrote in an op-ed for the British-based newspaper.

“Brian Williams, I’m sure, will never embellish a story again, nor I suspect put himself in the middle of it,” Mr. Morgan wrote. “He will, if he is allowed, be a better reporter and anchor as a result of what he is now going through. In fact, ironically, Brian Williams is now the news anchor I would trust most on American television.”

Mr. Morgan said he personally shares the type of pain Mr. Williams must be suffering at his public admission of deception, likening the situation to Dan Rather’s forced resignation from CBS after it was revealed he aired a false report of President George W. Bush’s war record.

“Was it right or fair to throw [Mr. Rather] to the wolves for dropping his first major clanger? To make him a figure of fun and humiliation? I don’t think so,” Mr. Morgan wrote. “I had some personal experience of this vicious dog-eat-dog scenario when I was fired as editor of UK newspaper Daily Mirror in 2004 for publishing supposedly fake photos of British troops abusing Iraqis.

“One think I know for sure is that if I’d survived, I’d have been a far better editor,” he said. “One who exercised even more care and caution in similar situations.”