Pete Williams

Pete Williams is an NBC News correspondent based in Washington, D.C. He has been covering the Justice Department and the U.S. Supreme Court since April 1993. Williams was also a key reporter on the Microsoft anti-trust trial and Judge Jackson's decision.

Prior to joining NBC, Williams served as a press official on Capitol Hill for many years. In 1986 he joined the Washington, DC staff of then Congressman Dick Cheney as press secretary and a legislative assistant. In 1989, when Cheney was named Secretary of Defense, Williams was appointed Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. He also served as spokesman to the Pentagon. While in that position, Williams was named Government Communicator of the Year in 1991 by the National Association of Government Communicators.

A 1971 graduate of Natrona County High school, Williams won the national Radio Speaking event at the 1970 National Forensics League competition. He graduated from Stanford University in 1974 and worked thereafter as a reporter and news director at KTWO-TV and Radio in his hometown of Casper, Wyoming until 1985. Working with the Radio and Television News Directors Association, for which he served as a member of the board of directors, he successfully lobbied the Wyoming Supreme Court to permit broadcast coverage of its proceedings and twice sued Wyoming judges over pre-trial exclusion of reporters from the courtroom. For these efforts, he received a First Amendment Award from the Society of Professional Journalists.

In 1991, while serving as Pentagon spokesperson during the Gulf War, Williams was outed as a homosexual by activist and author Michelangelo Signorile. [http://www.signorile.com/articles/nyp97.html]

Further reading

*Johansson, Warren & Percy, William A. [http://williamapercy.com/pub-Outing.htm "Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence."] Harrington Park Press, 1994, pp. 190, 195-9, 204-5.
*Panelist, [http://www.kramerslaw.com/legal_news_reporting.htm Columbia Law School Alumni Forum on Law & Journalism] , April 7, 2005.

References

External links

* [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3689493/ NBC News Bio]