Tag Archives: Choppergate

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.

 

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.