Jacques Steinberg at the NYT takes a look at the gestalt Brian Williams today who lets loose with a less formal version of himself on the NBC blog, "The Daily Nightly," offering viewers a different level of access into the stories covered on the NBC Nightly news. Steinberg characterizes Williams as "showing a little leg" and between that and the rather fetching photo run by the NYT, we guess that Williams is a shoo-in to win the "Gawker Hottie" title for bloggers.

We were tickled pink, though, to see our own intrepid cousin at TVNewser given props in the article, which called him an "influential viewer" (though query if you can be a "viewer" per se if you admit to not watching the news:

"It makes me want to watch the evening news, and I haven't watched in years," Mr. Stelter said in an interview.

We'd also like to immodestly point out that one of the cited "10 occasions over the last three months [where] Mr. Stelter has provided links to "The Daily Nightly" on his own blog" was when Mr. Williams stretched some leg in our direction, linking us and proving once again that everybody likes Barry Manilow.