Brian Williams - why lie?

@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

happy to be of service.

Full disclosure: NBC.com is one of the top ten places I go for news lately. I hate the redesigned CNN.com and use NBC instead for a first look at what is going on in any given day.

I have not watched a nightly broadcast on any network for at least 5 years.

I go to CBS.

I have no idea of what has happened to CNN...but it is almost like someone doing a parody of a terrible news station. I expect any day to see Geraldo Rivera opening Al Capone's safe on CNN.

It truly sucks.

Not as much as Fox NEWS...but it sucks.

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@firefly,

Quote:

I didn't find that improper for the evening news broadcast. NBC was hyping that live broadcast of Peter Pan because they wanted to attract as many viewers as possible for it--it was on NBC--and they had a natural tie-in on the nightly news because Brian Williams daughter was in the title role.

that kind of thing used to be reserved for the morning shows, but I think all the networks are willing to do it now.

Quote:

So, I've never put absolute faith in just one news source. And I'm just not that bothered by Brian Williams altering an essentially personal experience to make it appear more "dangerous" than it was. I don't think he should get fired over something like this.

Well, he told this one fib a lot of times, and we dont know how many more fibs there are yet. THe drip drip drip of not caring enough about the truth to speak it could get him.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

That said we now have three probable cases where Williams fabricated forrest gump stories that have him front and center to history being made where he was not, at least not to the degree claimed

While I dont care for the press and I cant speak to his helicopter story, (as a vet I think it stinks), I know personally that he was telling the truth about the Ritz Carlton in N.O. during Katrina and have forwarded an email to a vice president in the news division backing up his story about the water and the body...I dont like to see anyone accused for something they didnt do. The water was at least 2 1/2-3 feet deep and there was what he would have identified as a body floating in front of the Ritz.

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@giujohn,

This for me is going to go like the Bill Cosby thing, the longer we go without proof of the charges the less I will believe the charges. If there is not a big shoe dropped by the end of the week then Dan Rather is probably right that williams is a hell of a guy and a hell of a journalist.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

Is there anyone here saying he/she has never done it?

I told you I tell no war stories I wasn't part of.

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@bobsal u1553115,

bobsal u1553115 wrote:

Quote:
Is there anyone here saying he/she has never done it?

I told you I tell no war stories I wasn't part of.

You are are aware I am sure that the military guys LOVE Williams.......

Logan not so much.

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@hawkeye10,

My stepson who spent most of his four years in Iraq plus an added 11 months of stop loss there has always said that most troops didn't care much for reporters. Was that your experience in the 'Ghanistan?

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@bobsal u1553115,

bobsal u1553115 wrote:

Quote:
Is there anyone here saying he/she has never done it?

I told you I tell no war stories I wasn't part of.

And I tell no stories about famous movie actresses I have bedded.

But neither of those things go to the question I asked, Bobsal. I mentioned that earlier in your initial response.

In any case, Brian Williams stretched the truth in a war story he WAS a part of. And Brian Williams did put himself into danger in order to report on the war.

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@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

In any case, Brian Williams stretched the truth in a war story he WAS a part of. And Brian Williams did put himself into danger in order to report on the war.

No doubt. But we wouldn't want to conflate the two issues.

He did overstate his credentials and had numerous occasions to at least not repeat his misremembering the one time in his life he was flying in a helicopter with a bunch of guys suited up and packing and came under an RPG attack.

That's all I'm saying. Chalk it up to hubris and give him twenty lashes with a wet noodle.

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@bobsal u1553115,

That sounds like a fitting punishment, Bobsal.

I just like the guy as a news anchor. Some really leave me cold; he doesn't. Perhaps that is why I am coming to his defense.

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@Frank Apisa,

He's Canadian, isn't he? The Canadian talking heads are ones I like, too.

But then I like Terry Gross and Shep Smith, too.

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@bobsal u1553115,

bobsal u1553115 wrote:

My stepson who spent most of his four years in Iraq plus an added 11 months of stop loss there has always said that most troops didn't care much for reporters. Was that your experience in the 'Ghanistan?

My wife hated the time suck of having reporters around irregardless of who they were. She says that Christiane Amanpour asked offensively stupid questions, which I find hard to believe.

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@hawkeye10,

Quote:

This for me is going to go like the Bill Cosby thing, the longer we go without proof of the charges the less I will believe the charges. If there is not a big shoe dropped by the end of the week then Dan Rather is probably right that williams is a hell of a guy and a hell of a journalist.

The reporter from Stars and Stripes put together a very complelling case and I saw the interview with the helo pilot who stated Williams is wrong. Williams was not on the "Big Windy" helo that was attacked and wasnt even on the one behind it, he was on a helo going in the opposite direction and never took any fire. Also, I dont see any producer or cameraman coming to his aid to corroborate his story as he wasnt alone on this flight.
Apparently it was several service members who contacted Stars and Stripes to complain about the story he was telling so not all the military loves him.

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Quote:

Does anyone else really believe he walked into the office of the president of NBC News to say, "Well, I think for the good of the organization..." And then the boss said, "Oh sure, good idea..."

Really? Then I have news for you: This is way over her pay grade, and way over Williams'. The catastrophe has engulfed parent company Comcast and almost certainly an army of lawyers that it has convened to figure out a way to extricate itself from this. Williams, I imagine, has his lawyers lined up, too.

http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/brian-williams-should-resign-1.9916793

This rubbed me the wrong way too, as it can only be either arrogance or lack of truthfulness, and either is deadly to his career at this point.

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But viewers know that. What they won’t tolerate is a lie. When trust is shattered, it is impossible to reassemble the pieces. Something else then replaces that badge of "trust." It's called "doubt." In its own strange way, "doubt" is as powerful as "trust," but impossible to shake. For a professional anchor, it's a scarlet letter.

Williams — understandably reeling from this disaster — may actually believe he can come back and earn back that trust.

But once gone, it's gone forever. I'm sorry. I really am. But this is the end, or should be.

There’s nothing left to do now but the press release.

probably so. There were at the time a lot of people who were not happy that Comcast was buying NBC, because of their record of not caring about anything but money, they will never stand behind talent if money is threatened.

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I was reading the other day someone saying that Williams patterned his schtick on what worked for Tim Russert, and that sounds right too me. But Russert was a Sunday show yakker not the news division main face and not a news anchor, maybe Williams is currently shocked to learn that the standards of honesty are different for him.

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http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/561*425/ows_142326917610176.jpg

Crushing.

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@hawkeye10,

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The real problem, as has been pointed out to me, is that Williams told his now-discredited downed-helicopter-RPG story on "Nightly News" last month. It's one matter to pipe a story on "Late Show with David Letterman," as he did in 2013.

But it's a whole other magnitude of malfeasance to have piped it on a news program.

That could be the coup de grâce.
http://www.newsday.com/entertainment/tv/brian-williams-should-resign-1.9916793

The fact that the lie was repeated during a broadcast of "Nightly News" also changes my view of how seriously it should be regarded.

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@hawkeye10,

That may be true in a way. Things have been 'going south' for quite a while now, I gather, re what is tv news, done as well as can be at the time, as it used to be, or what we thought it used to be.

It's also going south re news reporters, people stationed in different zones.

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@bobsal u1553115,

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He's Canadian, isn't he?

Brian Williams isn't Canadian, he's an American.

The late Peter Jennings, who was the sole anchor of ABC's World News Tonight from 1983--2005, was born in Canada.

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@firefly,

I am seeing reports that at some point his bosses told him to stop telling the story because they felt that it had truth problems. This would explain why from the very first they have refused to be publicly supportive. If this is true then it adds a layer of stupidity to Willaims telling the story in the later years.

This is unconfirmed, but is an aspect of this story that I am watching.

1 Reply

Brian Williams - why lie?

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