Brian Williams - why lie?

Williams did wrong...serious wrong.

Quote:

Williams did wrong...serious wrong.

it was finger waving wrong, it was mock him when you introduce him on stage wrong, it should not be a firing offense.

We see what the hounds who are on his tail find, but I expect it to be enough to get him fired. Whether I will agree or not we shall see.

I suspect it as more to do with the big target on his back. He's still got top ratings of all the evening news broadcasts.

He has done some odd things on air of late though, so it makes me wonder what is going on. Just recently, they spent a good portion of air time on why he wasn't anchoring that night due to his daughter's debut on stage as Peter Pan and then showed about 5 minutes of her in dress rehearsal.

It wasn't proper for the evening news broadcast, would have been more fitting for his Rock Center show.

Just recently, they spent a good portion of air time on why he wasn't anchoring that night due to his daughter's debut on stage as Peter Pan and then showed about 5 minutes of her in dress rehearsal.

Thompson says Williams’ predecessor Tom Brokaw could jump back in the saddle if NBC mimics the way CBS handled Dan Rather’s stepping down.

The executive is Jeff Fager, who was one of the subjects of Joe Hagan’s recent profile of “60 Minutes” correspondent Lara Logan. I’ve been thinking about that, ever since the news broke that Logan would return to the show. Seems to me that, while it is certainly problematic that a reporter as consistently error-prone as Logan has been given another chance — she really should’ve been fired — she’s the secondary problem for “60 Minutes.” The big one is her boss, Fager, who has enabled her and, more generally, systematically destroyed a once-great program.

For some reason — I can guess! (#NotAllExecutives) — Fager has not come in for much criticism, which is weird, because, as he wrote last year, “As executive producer, I am responsible for what gets on the air.” Well, OK! Within the last year, he’s treated viewers to some real bushwa:

A grossly inaccurate segment on the green technology sector, which, as Huffington Post put it, “conflated the Silicon Valley clean tech venture capital scene with the Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program for renewable energy.” The program portrayed green tech as a failure, which was rather at odds with reports of “the solar power craze that is sweeping Wall Street.” (As Joe Romm noted, Lesley Stahl had clearly made up her mind about the state of the industry, before she’d even talked to experts.)
A segment on the NSA that is, at best, a puff piece. The host, John Miller, said the NSA “agreed to speak to “60 Minutes” because it believes it has ‘not told its story well.’” It was not, and should not, have been Miller’s responsibility to oblige them, but that’s what happened. (A comparison to Mike Wallace and Big Tobacco — another leviathan — is not flattering.) There were, noted Jack Mirkinson, “no anti-NSA advocates or civil libertarians interviewed on-camera for the piece.” (Miller has since joined the NYPD, which is not a thing reporters who take the craft seriously tend to do.)
A credulous segment on Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s drone service — years away from being a reality — with giggly Charlie Rose. Bezos’ plan is, reported the Washington Post, “nothing more than a gimmick at this point due to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) process for approving civilian drones in the national airspace.” In other words, it’s also illegal. As Gawker’s J.K. Trotter put it, “Amazon could not have asked for a better advertisement.”
This is an extraordinarily terrible record to compile in a single year. And all of it, according to his own job description, ought to be laid at the feet of Fager. Wouldn’t it be in CBS’s best interest to cut him loose?

Brian Williams said on Saturday that he was stepping aside from the daily broadcast of NBC’s “Nightly News” for the next several days, after admitting that he had misled the public about being on a helicopter that was forced down in Iraq.

In a memo to the NBC News staff, Mr. Williams said that Lester Holt, the anchor for “Dateline,” would step in as the network dealt with the issue.

“In the midst of a career spent covering and consuming news, it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news, due to my actions,” Mr. Williams said in the two-paragraph memo.

Mr. Williams is both anchor and managing editor for “NBC Nightly News.”

Mr. Williams did not say exactly when he expected to return to the anchor chair. “Upon my return, I will continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us,” he said.

Should Mr. Williams be forced out of the anchor chair, it would be a major setback for NBC’s news division, which is in a fierce competition for viewers. So far this season, NBC has averaged 9.3 million total viewers for its nightly broadcast, compared with 8.7 million for ABC and 7.3 million for CBS, according to Nielsen.

The decline and fall of NBC News

That question, and that "Tom" -- Tom Brokaw, who turned 75 Friday — unintentionally became a part of the Brian Williams drama earlier in the day following a New York Post story that insisted he had demanded the firing of his successor at "Nightly News," Brian Williams.

Brokaw has been conspicuously silent, at least publicly, on the subject of Williams, although he did release a brief rebuttal in an email to the Huffington Post which read: "I have neither demanded nor suggested Brian be fired. His future is up to Brian and NBC News executives."

During an event at The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation on Feb. 8, 2008, an audience member asked Williams to name the highlights of his career.

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“I was the first person to walk into the hotel room of Nelson Mandela the morning he woke up and learned he’d been elected president,” said Williams.

That moment was marked with historical significance. Mandela was the first black person to be elected president in post-apartheid South Africa. The election was held April 27, 1994.

But Williams told that story a different way during an NBC News broadcast on Dec. 5, 2013, the day Mandela died.

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“We now want to take you back almost 20 years to an April morning in 1994 in a hotel suite in Johannesburg. Nelson Mandela had been elected president the night before — I had the honor of being the first Western journalist that day to shake his hand and sit down and talk with him,” said Williams.

Besides the obvious change from stating in 2008 that he was the first person to see Mandela to, by 2013, saying he was the first Western journalist to see the leader, Williams embellished his story in another way.

Mandela did not wake up the morning after the election to learn that he had been elected president. He knew the night of the election that he had won.

A CBS News retrospective called the election “a landslide” in Mandela’s favor. Mandela’s party, the African National Congress, won the election with nearly 63 percent of the vote.

He also gave a speech to supporters the night of the election:

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This is indeed a joyous night. Although not yet final, we have received the provisional results of the election. My friends, I can tell you that we are delighted by the overwhelming support for the African National Congress. Within the last few hours, I have received telephone calls from State President de Klerk, General Constand Viljoen, Dr Zac de Beer and Mr Johnson Mlambo, the first Deputy President of the PAC, who pledged their full co-operation and offered their sincere congratulations. I thanked them all for their support and look forward to working together for our beloved country.

Williams’ tweak on the story is part of what appears to be an emerging pattern of embellishment, if not outright lying

He has done some odd things on air of late though, so it makes me wonder what is going on. Just recently, they spent a good portion of air time on why he wasn't anchoring that night due to his daughter's debut on stage as Peter Pan and then showed about 5 minutes of her in dress rehearsal.

It wasn't proper for the evening news broadcast, would have been more fitting for his Rock Center show.