Category Archives: national news

national news

Williams gone for 6 months, maybe forever

That didn’t take long.

I was hoping to cool my jets for a time while NBC News decided how to handle Brian Williams’ “misremembering” tale of woe. But today, the network news division decided to suspend Williams for six months without pay for violating the No. 1 cardinal rule of journalism — which is to tell the truth.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/nbc-news-suspends-brian-williams-for-false-iraq-helicopter-story/ar-AA9eu7i

It does not appear that this will end well for Williams’ once-stellar journalism career. He got caught fabricating a story about getting shot down in Iraq in 2003; he has been saying for years that his helicopter was hit by enemy rockets when, in fact, it wasn’t.

Then came questions about his reporting on Hurricane Katrina in 2005 — and then some head-scratching regarding his reports about flying over rocket fire in Israel in 2007.

When does it end?

NBC made the right call here. Williams’ credibility is, shall we say, blown to smithereens. His presence now at the NBC Nightly News anchor desk calls attention not to the news he would delivering, but to the man who would deliver it — and not in a positive manner.

What happens now is anyone’s guess. Williams will be off the air for at least six months. I suspect it won’t take him that long to decide that perhaps his time in the anchor’s chair is over.

For the short term, the network and the anchorman will have time to work out a separation agreement and a way to announce his departure that seeks to save a little bit of face — for both parties.

There will be plenty of discussion over how this controversy was allowed to explode and how Williams got away for as long as he did telling a story so many people knew was wrong.

A part of me is sad to witness the implosion of a man’s career.

Another part of me, though, is glad someone is being held accountable for breaching a serious trust between the media and those who expect truth in the information they deliver.

 

national news

Anchor's problems mounting

It’s beginning to look as though the reporting of a controversy — more than the actual controversy — well might doom the career of a once-trusted broadcast network journalist.

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has stepped away from the cameras for an unspecified period of time, while the chatter continues about the circumstances of his made-up story about getting shot down — allegedly — in Iraq in 2003. His helicopter wasn’t hit by rocket fire, as he has reported for a dozen years and the network is launching an investigation into the circumstances of Williams’ “misremembering” the events of that day.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/debate-brews-over-whether-williams-can-survive-controversy/ar-AA9bgGx

Other questions about other stories have emerged.

And now we have media experts speculating aloud about whether Williams should lose his job, whether he should stay, and whether he’s lost the trust of viewers who depend on their TV journalists to tell the truth all the time.

According to The Associated Press: “The real difficulty for a news organization, or a reporter, is that once you’ve made one misstep, it’s really hard to earn (trust) back,” said David Westin, former ABC News president. “You can. But it takes a lot of time. It takes a long period of time with proven performances. It takes a long time of getting it right.”

Here’s the issue, as I see it: All the intense publicity and scrutiny and all the questions that have risen from this matter have damaged Williams’ reputation, perhaps beyond repair. Suppose he emerges from the examination squeaky clean. How does he recover from the millions of snarky comments, the late-night comics’ jokes and not mention the photo-shopped videos that have gone viral showing him landing on the moon, storming ashore at Normandy or planting the flag atop the hill on Iwo Jima?

The nation has made him a laughingstock — and not necessarily because of what has been alleged in the beginning, but because of the reaction to it.

Williams may have become as much a victim of social media as he has of the wounds his ego have inflicted on his career.

 

national news, Uncategorized

Look what they found in moon walker's closet!

Neil Armstrong: smuggler.

It has a fascinating ring to it. Who would have thought the nation’s premier space hero, daredevil test pilot, the first man to ever walk on the moon would have squirreled away some artifacts from humankind’s most daring adventure?

The First Man on the Moon died in 2012, and his widow, Carol, has uncovered a trove of goodies she discovered in his closet.

http://www.cnet.com/news/forgotten-apollo-moon-artifacts-found-in-neil-armstrongs-closet/

I think it’s quite cool that he managed to sneak this stuff past his NASA bosses.

The artifacts were supposed to have crashed into the moon, along with the Apollo 11 lunar lander, which Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin left behind in lunar orbit in July 1969 when they hooked up with Michael Collins in the command module. Armstrong, though, brought the items home with him.

They include a camera used to take pictures on the moon as well as some gizmos and gadgets that had been stuffed into a bag and placed in Armstrong’s closet.

Hey, these items aren’t secret weapons, nor do they require some kind of top-secret clearance to handle.

I can recall coming home from the Army in 1970 with some items I was supposed to turn into the quartermaster’s office as I was transitioning back to civilian life. I still have my trusty entrenching tool, issued to me in 1968 and, by golly, I still use it around the yard. I can’t recall how I got it past the supply sergeant back then.

Whatever.

Mrs. Armstrong’s discovery has been turned over to the Smithsonian Institution’s Air and Space Museum, where I’m sure it’ll be put on proper display.

It’s a pretty cool discovery.

national news

Yes, there's intelligent discussion out there

Public television, as well as public radio, get vilified by those who object to a so-called “liberal bias” in both media.

I don’t see it. Then again, perhaps my own bias clouds my vision.

A recent discussion by two noted pundits — one liberal and one conservative — points out, though, that common ground can exist and that two ideological foes can actually agree.

David Brooks, the conservative, writes a column for The New York Times; Mark Shields, the liberal, writes a syndicated column distributed by newspapers around the country.

They took up the issue of President Obama’s speech this past week at the National Prayer Breakfast. Speaking on the PBS NewsHour on Friday, I was struck by Brooks’s comments in particular.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/shields-brooks-politics-vaccination-using-religion-justify-evil-acts/

The president said Christians shouldn’t be too quick to cast stones at Islamic terrorists because Christianity has been used by radicals to do bad things “in the name of Christ.” Obama cited the Crusades and the Inquisition as examples.

Obama’s remarks have drawn considerable fire from the right. Brooks, however, takes a different view:

“I think, if the president had come as an atheist to attack religion and to attack Christianity, the Republicans would have a point. That’s not what a president should be doing.

“But that’s not how he came. He has used that prayer breakfast year after year to talk about his own faith, his own faith journey, his own struggles. He’s used it — he has come as a Christian. And the things he said were things — I have never met a Christian who disagreed with what he issued, that the religion has been perverted, that we have to walk humbly before the face of the lord, that God’s purposes are mysterious to us.

“This is not like some tangential, weird belief. This is at the core of every Christian’s faith and every Jew’s faith. And so what he said was utterly normal and admirable and a recognition of historical fact and an urge towards some humility. And so I thought the protests were manufactured and falsely manufactured.”

This kind of view illustrates, in my opinion, what makes public television so valuable. You do not hear the screamers — on the left or the right — trying to outshout the other side. Oh sure, you have the McLaughlin Group, but even those discussions are mild compared to what one hears on MSNBC or Fox.

As for Brooks and Shields, these two men are known for their agreeable disagreements.

I’ll take that level of civility over the scream fests any day of the week.

 

medical news, military news, national news

Vets get long-needed help from government

It can be stated clearly: Tom Coburn’s greatest public service accomplishment occurred the day he retired from the U.S. Senate.

The Oklahoma Republican — for reasons that remain a mystery to many observers — continually blocked legislation aimed at helping returning veterans cope with post-traumatic stress disorder that tragically led to suicide.

Coburn is gone from the Senate. So, what did his former colleagues do? They approved a bill — in a 99-0 vote! — that seeks to improve suicide prevention efforts at the Department of Veterans Affairs. It was a stunning display of bipartisan cooperation on an issue that clearly should transcend partisan differences.

As the New York Times noted in an editorial: “The bill calls for regular independent evaluations of the V.A.’s suicide prevention and mental health programs to ensure the most effective approaches are used in its hospitals and clinics. Other provisions include a pilot program to match returning veterans with colleagues whom they can confide in about mental health concerns, and a website to make it easier for veterans and their families to find help. Another provision would help psychiatrists who work for the V.A. repay medical school debt, which could ease the chronic shortage of mental health professionals.”

And yet … Sen. Coburn — using the Senate’s procedural trickery that allows a single senator to block legislation at will — kept this legislation from getting a vote on the floor of the upper congressional chamber.

What’s more, Tom Coburn’s other profession — besides blocking legislation in the Senate — is as a physician. It’s astonishing, therefore, that he would take such an obstructionist view on this issue.

The Senate has turned an important corner and America’s veterans are better served as a result.

 

national news

Did the work horse become a show horse?

I can’t help myself.

Whenever I see pictures of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams covering the Big Story — in the flak jacket, or the hip waders — I keep thinking of terms other than “journalist.”

I keep thinking of terms like “show horse,” “entertainer,” “grandstander,” “show off.”

OK, I know it’s likely unfair at this point of the Williams “Chopper-gate” controversy to pass final judgment, but it’s beginning to look strange and weird as I gander at these pictures of Williams on the job, reporting the news to his faithful viewers. (See the link attached.)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/02/09/questioning-the-ritz-carlton-gangs-that-brian-williams-said-terrorized-him-during-katrina/?tid=hp_mm

The link here, from the Washington Post, talks about another story emanating from Hurricane Katrina. It’s about gangs that reportedly terrorized the Ritz-Carlton Hotel where Williams was billeted during his coverage of the tragic storm.

This all began, of course, with the helicopter story that Williams now admits to “misremembering.” Others are saying he fabricated the story of being shot down in Iraq in 2003. The shoot-down didn’t happen. Williams wrapped his on-air apology in the flag, saying how he “bungled” an effort to pay tribute to the brave men and women who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And the reports of other questionable stories keep coming forward, casting even more doubt on the credibility of a man whose employer, NBC News, had been promoting on air as a man who had earned viewers’ “trust.”

Surely I’m not the only viewer whose faith in a veteran broadcast journalist has been shaken.

Oh, how I want to be wrong, but I cannot help thinking this isn’t going to end well for Brian Williams’ career.

 

national news

Williams's story — and reputation — are unraveling

Think of the Brian Williams story in terms of a sports referee.

A journalist shouldn’t ever become the story any more than, say, a football referee should determine the outcome of an athletic event. The Super Bowl played in Glendale, Ariz., the game won by the New England Patriots? Does anyone remember the officials in that game? No. They weren’t part of the story.

Williams, though, has become a story onto himself in light of the “Choppergate” controversy. He has told a tall tale for a dozen years about being shot down in Iraq in 2003. Then it came out he wasn’t shot down. Now we’re learning that his apology might not even add up.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2015/02/brian-williams-is-in-serious-trouble-202226.html?hp=l1_3_b2

The latest now is that the NBC Nightly News anchor is stepping aside “for a few days” to sort things out.

The media being what they are and with public curiosity crystallizing by the hour over this matter, it is appearing increasingly unlikely that the one-time solid broadcast journalist is going to regain his footing.

I consider myself a serious consumer of news. I get it from several places — online, print, broadcast TV and cable TV. I receive lots of punditry, commentary, editorializing throughout the political and philosophical universe.

I’m trying right at this moment to imagine ever listening to Brian Williams tell me what’s happening in the world without wondering: Is he giving it to me straight?

These men and women trade almost exclusively on the trust they build with their viewers. That trust is constructed with a commodity that is rock solid, but only if it doesn’t suffer damage. Then it becomes highly fragile.

That commodity is the truth, the slightest fudging of which renders the message being delivered meaningless. It appears to me that Brian Williams has done more than “misremember” a wartime event.

He has become The Story.

 

national news

Williams story taking on life of its own

A wise person once said that you know you’re toast when the late-night comics start making fun of you.

Welcome to the world of wee-hour funny stuff, Brian Williams.

His story about “misremembering” a shoot-down in Iraq and now his reporting from Hurricane Katrina is taking on a life of its own. It’s turning into a monster that, if it’s left still kicking, is going to knock down the walls of credibility that formerly surrounded the NBC Nightly News anchorman.

http://www.theneworleansadvocate.com/news/11526453-148/nbc-news-anchor-brian-williams

This is not a pretty sight to watch.

It well might be that the Katrina story inflicts an even deeper wound in Williams’s reputation.

He reported during the storm in 2005 about seeing “dead bodies” floating in the French Quarter — despite the reported fact at the time that the Quarter suffered hardly any flooding. He told viewers about ingesting floodwater, causing dysentery. Others on the scene have doubted that as well.

What in the world is happening to this individual’s once-stellar journalism career? He’s always been thought of as one of the more thoughtful, everyman, honest newsmen in the business. Williams has exhibited none of the erratic behavior that Dan Rather did when he took over from Walter Cronkite at CBS. He’s been rock solid, steady — and at times self-effacing, such as when he makes appearances on late-night shows to talk about stories he’s covered and the foibles he’s endured.

The so-called misremembering being shot down in Iraq by itself stretches credulity.

Add to that now the reporting of deep flaws in his Hurricane Katrina coverage and you start drawing the picture of a broadcst journalist who’s found himself in some deep doo-doo.

This is not fun to watch.

national news

NBC anchor getting pulled under

It’s hard to watch this, but I’m getting the feeling — just a few days into a strange saga of “misremembrance” — that a highly visible TV news anchor may be on his way out.

NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams is still facing questions about a story he made up — or “misremembered,” as he described it — about an incident in Iraq in 2003. He had been saying for a dozen years that a helicopter in which he was a passenger had been shot down by rocket fire. It turns out the shoot-down with Williams aboard didn’t happen.

Williams reported the other day about how an Army command sergeant major had helped rescue him and his fellow passengers after their ship was shot down. The report got a lot of play and Williams stood and accepted the cheers at Madison Square Garden alongside retired Sgt. Maj. Tim Terpak, the young man who engineered the rescue. Other veterans, though, spoke up and said the incident Williams described didn’t happen the way he described it; they said Williams wasn’t aboard the stricken Chinook helicopter.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/rieder/2015/02/05/brian-williams-unmitigated-disaster/22915325/

Now comes word that Williams might have fabricated what he saw in New Orleans while covering the Hurricane Katrina disaster in 2005. Williams reported serious flooding in the French Quarter. To borrow a phrase: oops! The French Quarter largely escaped the floodwaters that devastated much of the Big Easy.

NBC News has announced it is launching an internal investigation into what Williams said and did in Iraq and in New Orleans.

Williams has traded on the trust he has built with news watchers over many years in the anchor’s chair.

It’s difficult to imagine how a viewer of the NBC newscast each night can trust Williams now with telling us the truth about what he is reporting from the anchor’s chair.

What’s more, his apology has seemed somewhat muted, as he’s sought to wrap himself in the flag. Consider this from USA Today: “On air Wednesday night, Williams said he had ‘made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago,’ that the whole incident was simply ‘a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran and by extension our brave military men and women, veterans everywhere, those who have served everywhere while I did not.'”

From where I am sitting, that looks and sound a bit like spin.

NBC’s main anchorman is facing a steep climb back to respectability.

 

national news, political news

Crusades, slavery … in the name of Christianity?

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Barack Obama cannot possibly have a tin ear to the prevailing attitude among his harshest critics.

Can he?

The president stood before the National Prayer Breakfast audience Thursday and managed to offend Christians by invoking the memory of the Crusades and ol’ Jim Crow laws in scolding those who contend that Islam is the only great religion that produces horrible acts against humanity.

Not true, the president said. The Crusades and slavery were carried out — in the minds of many — in the name of Jesus Christ.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/critics-pounce-after-obama-talks-crusades-slavery-at-prayer-breakfast/ar-AA92xT8

Let’s understand something: President Obama spoke the harsh truth about the Crusades and U.S. laws that placed Americans in bondage.

He said: “And lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ.”

His comments enraged some Republicans. According to the Washington Post: “’The president’s comments this morning at the prayer breakfast are the most offensive I’ve ever heard a president make in my lifetime,’ said former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore (R). ‘He has offended every believing Christian in the United States. This goes further to the point that Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share.’”

Have we gotten over-sensitized to hearing such harsh scolding from our politicians? I’m beginning to think that’s the case. The late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy used to admonish Americans for not exhibiting more understanding and compassion toward others and he, too, enraged critics by speaking words not everyone wanted to hear.

Barack Obama’s own Christian faith ought to give him some license to tell the truth the way he sees it.

That, of course, won’t sell to those who continue to insist he has “Muslim sympathies,” or even that he’s actually a “closet Muslim.” He has proclaimed his faith in Jesus Christ more times than I can remember, but that won’t quell the critics this time.

Then again, the Constitution of the United States declares there should be no religious litmus test for those seeking public office. But what the heck, that’s another story for another time.