Discussion for article #232988
I’m copying my own post in another thread about Brian Williams in response to this story because it is appropriate here, too:
I put myself (in my imagination) in his shoes: I’m in a group of
helicopters in a war zone. I’m not only not serving as a trained
soldier on this flight, I have never been trained for this. I’m scared
shitless when bullets (or missiles, or whatever) are flying, and try to
hold it together and trust the real soldiers I’m dependent on to get out
of this. A copter is hit, and all of us set down. I don’t know what
the hell is going on, but I’m lucky I didn’t piss myself and I’m just
trying to follow their orders and still do my job. Now a fucking
legendary dust storm is upon us – I can’t see much beyond my face and
I’m trying to look at the damage to a 'copter and still listen for
instructions from the soldiers I’m with, because we know the bad guys
are out there, somewhere, trying to get us and hurt us. In the
aftermath I’m able to decipher my notes and report what happened. But
the incident looms so large in my mind that all I remember correctly
months or years later is that it is the scariest damned thing and I’m so
grateful to the brave souls who do this every day and got me (and
themselves) out of it. The fear is what I remember the most. Years
later, I’m still grateful to those who serve and admire them. The
details of my experience keep getting muddled in that basic feeling I
have every time I think of that time – I was so scared, that’s the
thing that sticks with me. That feeling.
I’ve always found him to be a decent guy, and not on a level with a
lot of blowhards who make stuff up. So I can personally cut him some
slack in this instance. He didn’t try to paint himself as a hero, and
said many times, “those who served, as I did not…” to indicate that he
doesn’t put himself on a par with the people who go into battle daily.
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As others have said, when will there ever be any accountability for cable news, specifically, for Fox?
Canada definitely had the right idea.
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“…As you would expect, we have a team dedicated to gathering the facts to help us make sense of all that has transpired…”
That’s the problem. Journalists are not supposed to “make sense” of the facts and interrupt them…just report them. The trouble at NBC News apparently goes all the way to the top.
They just cannot face the fact that they allowed themselves to be manipulated to tell the story that Rumsfeld wanted them to tell. There is nothing romantic, exciting or entertaining about war. It’s the last resort after all other strategies have been exhausted.
Williams just can’t help himself. Ever since he bought into the propaganda which was spoon fed to him by whatever source, he fully embraced yellow journalism. He became the center of every story…his thoughts and his feelings…instead of just reporting facts and letting the viewer decide.
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Williams is one of the good guys in the business from all I’ve heard.
He gets the benefit of the doubt from me.
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Williams is not supposed to have any imagination. He’s a journalist. He deals with facts. If he wants to be an entertainer and be the center of attention, then he should pursue that dream as a storyteller or writer. I hate that he was caught up in the moment as embedded media, but he was. He should have been suspicious not enthralled by the propaganda he was being given. He should never have felt he had to lie about anything. If he had stuck to the facts, none of this would be an issue today.
Our soldiers returning home from war deserve our understanding and support. But nobody has to romanticize what they went through and were forced to do to survive. It puts an undue burden on them to explain things that some will never be able to square in their own minds. Many of them are having a hard enough time dealing with what they saw over there already.
Williams is not to be pitied. He needs to accept that his behavior has not been professional and resign.
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Sorry, you seem like a nice guy yourself, but his job is to tell the truth
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I was initially in favor of Williams resigning: seemed like he just fabricated a bunch of stuff.
Which is, obviously, problematic, for a journalist.
I’ve since changed my mind. The rush of adrenaline that he undoubtedly experienced could have seriously affected the process by which memories are first created. So his initial memory may have been faulty.
The repeated discussions of the same event could then consolidate the same faulty memories.
Is it possible that someone could fabricate an event that never even happened, and believe fully in it?
Of course it is. And if you dispute this, just check out the literature on false memories. They (false memories) are easy to create (I do it every semester in my intro psych class), and those having those false memories are convinced they are real.
The remaining problem I have with Williams is that he told this story, and it helped gin up the thirst for what was unfolding in Iraq: he was part of the media cheer-leading team. That’s my problem.
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Well said. The fog of war is relevant.
I wonder why Mr Williams is getting so dumped on when people at Fox news lie all the damned time and get away with it with no repercussions. Yes it is a bad thing when a reporter has been caught in a lie but why the difference in treatment? Apparently it’s OK at Fox. I do recall Fox being hauled into court once for lying but they were let off claiming to be an entertainment net work. Yet they call themselves Fox News and their current slogan is “we report, you decide.”
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For NBC because they just signed Brian up again for 10 million, and now they are stuck with a turkey.
Brian reads a teleprompter for a living. Sometimes he ventures out from his pompous perch to pretend he’s a journalist, which usually gets him in trouble.
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You are misreading, and using it as an excuse to attack NBC.
That will happen when they finally go too far and enough people wake up and realize that the Corporate Controlled Conservative Press lies to them.
Maybe because no one really expects Fox to adhere to any journalistic standards?
Those who recognize Fox as pure Ailes propaganda just shrug it off as another pile added to Bullshit Mountain.
Those who watch Fox because they think they’re being informed don’t know any better. My spouse, who worked in TV news for decades, said that since the 1980’s, TV news is deliberately produced for people who don’t read. So they’re just too ignorant to realize they’re being duped.
Some of us still expect a few shreds of journalistic integrity from the major networks. Sadly, that is also eroding before our eyes.
Having not been in active battle grounds I can not speak to the sounds and sights that a lay person might experience upon first encounter. What i can say is that when coming upon violent and aggressive behavior your perception is skewed beyond reality and your recall memory is distorted…
That said this kind of issue needs to be addressed because fux channel got a free pass to consistently mislead.
Wonderfully shown by CNN’s propensity to auto start a video for any and every story one pokes on. I hate that. One thing I really like about TPM? It’s built for readers. Long form? You bet’cha.
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Only in deregulated, corporate-controlled America can a clueless but cute, young teleprompter operator at a FOX affiliate catch the eye of a tobacco-stained, alcoholic news director and ultimately land one of three network anchor desks in barely a decade.
To paraphrase the E. W. Scripps motto, Give dim light and the people will lose their way…
Williams is nothing but a wanabe celebrity who appears on every tonight show he can, his own showed tanked about a year ago. one time on Letterman he said he doesn’t take sides which is bull shit. he is no Walter Cronkite who when something was wrong he wasn’t afraid to report it. i hope the fire lyin Brian
I’m inclined to let it go, but not because of “fog of war,” or other reasons for “misremembering.” He made contemporaneous notes which were accurate. In fact he said that his review of those very notes are what made him realize that his statements were false.
The reason that I have decided to let it go is that it did not substantially change the truth of the entire story that he was reporting. Yes, he was also a part of the Rumsfeld cheerleading squad, which in my book is far more serious.
But considering that we, as a country, have not demanded consequences from those who made up the entire justification for that war, I just think this is not worthy of the outrage that it is generating. Did he exaggerate details to make himself look like a hero? Yes. It just doesn’t go high enough on my shock-o-meter to be worthy of all the fuss.
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I find it very naive to think the higher ups at NBC weren’t aware of this blatant fabrication. In reality it may have been their idea to begin with, and they had Williams go along with it.
It is also very amusing how his supporters are buying into the “misremembrence” excuse. Reminds me of the Clinton’s supporters from back in the day screaming “but he didn’t inhale!”. Or the W. Bush supporters screaming “But he really thought there were WMD!” I guess if you like someone enough, you have no problem suspending reality and logic. As someone that was shot at on two occasions, I can assure you it is something you never, ever forget. Time slows down, it is like everything is happening in slow motion… when I’m a geriatric who no longer knows his name, I will vividly remember both events.
What I find suspicious is the timing. Why now? They are piling on Williams about things that happened and have been known about for more than a decade. I don’t buy for a second that a soldiers facebook post set all of this off. For whatever reason someone(s) very powerful want Brian Williams to loose all credibility and go away.
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