Brian Williams - why lie?

It would be difficult to overstate the damage Williams' loss does to the NBC News brand. He was much more than the host of the network's nightly newscast, which is a terribly small sliver of the NBC/Comcast pie anyway. He was the face of NBC News and, to some degree, NBCUniversal. In that regard, it doesn't matter whether he is replaced at 6:30 p.m. by Lester Holt, Matt Lauer, Savannah Guthrie or someone else entirely. What NBC lost with Williams was its chief public figure. Many Americans no longer trust Brian Williams, which means that a significant amount of Americans will no longer trust NBC News.

Anchor’s Away: Brian Williams’s Biggest Sin Was Making Himself the Story

The news media, and the nation at large, has a huge disconnect from the military. Whether its guilt about having not put on a uniform or having done such a piss poor job of reporting on the build-up to the Iraq war, a lot of national news people seem hypnotized by camouflage. Williams acted awestruck by some of the “brave men and women of our armed forces” (as they must be called by TV convention) and he crossed the line when he recalled being in danger when he wasn’t.

Recent psychological research revealed how people want to inhabit storyworlds because of how stories work in the brain. We actually always project ourselves into all sorts of storyworlds (books, films and beyond) in order to understand them. So it follows that the greater the ability of an audience to project into a world, the greater their understanding and attachment to it.

“Duncan the wonder horse,” as Brokaw has been affectionately referred to over the years, has always been consulted by both his superiors and his peers. After General Electric purchased NBC, in 1986, the company’s C.E.O. at the time, Jack Welch, relied on Brokaw to serve as a bridge to and from a news division that he considered entitled and wasteful. The NBC president Robert Wright relied on Brokaw’s balanced judgment and deep ties to his news colleagues. Even after he retired as an anchor, a decade ago, Brokaw was often consulted by the two network presidents who succeeded Wright, Jeff Zucker and Burke. Brokaw saw the correspondent David Bloom, who died in 2003, as NBC’s greatest news asset; he thought Williams was a skilled broadcaster but that he was inclined toward self-aggrandizement. Williams wondered: If his predecessor had retired, why was Brokaw still in the studio, opining on election nights and introducing specials on “the greatest generation”?

“Brian always feels the need to embellish,” the NBC veteran said. “He has always been known for telling stories dramatically, and he’s known for making any story about him.” But the bluster had always seemed more like a quirk than a time bomb. “It was more people eye-rolling: ‘That’s Brian,’” the NBC veteran said.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/tom-brokaw-brian-williams-lies-115012.html#ixzz3RUflC3Xe

I don't know how Brian Williams thought he could get away with it?! What about the cameraman with him? His producer? They could sleep with themselves at night knowing he was telling this lie for over a decade?! I'm disappointed in them too for going along with it.
No 'story' is worth your integrity. Especially in the hard news world...we HAVE to believe you. Will I forgive Brian? I already have. It was announced last night that NBC has suspended him for 6 months. He's been embarrassed and I hope he's learned his lesson. The part that bugged me most about this whole thing was his initial denying of it. The half-assed apology that tried to sugar coat it. No one bought it and look at the situation now. C'mon Brian...we're not that stupid. I'm guessing he'll be back in 6 months and let's hope he's humbled by it all. It's pretty easy to get up on your high horse...but the fall to the ground is gonna hurt.

By Saturday morning, NBC executives saw that the story was not going away, the people with knowledge of the proceedings said. At the meeting at Mr. Williams’s apartment that morning, Ms. Turness, Ms. Fili-Krushel and other executives decided, among other issues, that Mr. Williams needed to get off the air. He had become too much a part of the news. Lester Holt, the anchor for “Dateline,” could step in.

Mr. Williams felt strongly that he needed to deliver the message. Executives agreed that he deserved that courtesy. He wrote the note, which executives reviewed, before it was sent to NBC News staff members Saturday afternoon. Mr. Holt informed viewers on the newscast that night.

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.

As Managing Editor of NBC Nightly News, I have decided to take myself off of my daily broadcast for the next several days, and Lester Holt has kindly agreed to sit in for me to allow us to adequately deal with this issue. Upon my return, I will continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us

That was his one chance to tell the truth, to explain why he did it, and instead he denied doing it on purpose, which is not credible.

The military newspaper Stars and Stripes had just published an article in which Mr. Williams acknowledged that he had exaggerated an account of a helicopter journey in Iraq. Worse, Mr. Williams had written a weak apology, reading it first to the newspaper, then posting it on Facebook. None of his superiors knew about it.

Alarmed, the news operation immediately began scrambling to contain the damage, according to people with knowledge of the events of the last week. A team was quickly assembled to draft a statement that Mr. Williams could read during his “NBC Nightly News” show that evening to address the issue. But the Facebook post boxed them in. The explanations had to match.

'Nightly News' keeps ratings lead amid Williams scandal
Roger Yu,
USA TODAY
February 11, 2015

NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams beat its competitors last week while the anchor battled accusations of embellishing stories about his reporting, according to new ratings data released Tuesday.

The nightly broadcast, which has been the most popular evening network news show in recent years, averaged 10.2 million viewers for five weeknights last week, edging ABC's World News Tonight by 8% and CBS Evening News by 30%, Nielsen's data show.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2015/02/10/nbc-news-ratings/23168645/

Thinking about Williams requires grappling with the consequence of Hillary Clinton’s untrue story of coming under sniper fire in Bosnia. If I am correct in concluding that Williams should not continue in the anchor role at NBC, must I then believe that Clinton is unqualified to be president? If I distinguish between the two, is that because of pro-Clinton, pro-Democrat bias? Would I judge more harshly were a Republican candidate involved?

Here, I can only offer my best effort to analyze the two cases objectively. Clinton’s sniper-fire statement is, no doubt, a blot on her record. It is not a disqualifying blot. Journalists come to the job with only their credibility to offer. We expect less from politicians in terms of total truth-telling. Spin is part of the business model. You could legitimately decide that Clinton’s sniper story is disqualifying, but you must then deal with Ronald Reagan witnessing the liberation of Nazi death camps.

Either way, the untenable nature of Williams’s position becomes even clearer. Imagine that Clinton’s sniper story becomes a campaign issue. How does Williams, in the anchor chair, comfortably report that news, even after six months away?