When Williams ascended to the big chair, NBC thought they had finally found a replacement for the much-respected Tom Brokaw, who had anchored NBC Nightly News for 22 years. But Williams never did live up to Brokaw's appeal. In any event, NBC saw him as their best chance to win over audiences. Unfortunately, Williams has a few skeletons in his closet. The biggest of those is a tale Williams has been telling this since the Iraqi war about being in a helicopter in 2003 that was hit and went down. Turns out, that was a lie. Whoops.
How this was uncovered is really quite interesting. Ever since Williams first told the story, the soldiers who were with him at the time have been calling "Bullship!" on this tale. But they were ignored. Then recently, the story boiled over when one of the soldiers pushed the story on Facebook. At that point, Williams was finally forced to recant his story. Said Williams:
"I feel terrible about making this mistake, especially since I found my OWN WRITING about the incident from back in '08, and I was indeed on the Chinook behind the bird that took the RPG in the tail housing just above the ramp."In other words, it was another helicopter that was hit and Williams was never in any danger.
Williams tried to play this off as a mistake and called it the haze of combat and the problem of memories, but no one is buying that. Then this weekend, word came that Williams is being investigated by NBC for other sensational claims he's made. In particular, they are questioning his story of seeing a dead body float past his hotel as he covered Hurricane Katrina. There will probably be more.
With word leaking out that NBC is looking into these lies, Williams announced that he would be stepping away from the Nightly News "for a few days." Whether this lasts longer than a few days and/or continues indefinitely will depend on the damage done to NBC's reputation from retaining Williams.
This is interesting on several levels. First, I find it interesting that Williams got away with this without any hint of danger for 12 years now. But now, based on things everyone already knew, NBC decided to discover Williams' wrongdoing and turn on him. I wonder what changed? Sadly, I have no answer for you on this one.
Secondly, I find it interesting how many journalists get caught telling serious lies. We've seen everything from pointless self-aggrandizing lies like those told by Williams to reporters who made up whole stories. There seems to be some temptation among prominent journalists to make news when the real news doesn't fit their desires. Even worse, the length of time it takes to admit these flaws and offer some punishment even after the lies and faked stories had become obvious should be shocking to the journalism industry, but somehow doesn't seem to bother them.
Third, I wonder what this means for Hillary, who told a nearly identical story about landing under fire in Yugoslavia. She made that up, as the troops present at the time have confirmed. Will this reach her as it reached Williams? Or will everyone continue to look the other way on her? Personally, I suspect they will look the other way because there is no one obvious to take her place. If she had an acceptable replacement for nominee, then I think the Democrats would now discover this lie she has been telling and be done with her. But since there is no real alternative, they will continue to try to stick our heads in the sand.
Thoughts?
28 comments:
I just found #BrianWilliamsMisremembers hilarious.
It will be interesting to see how the Hillary-thing plays out. Though a part of me feels the public will see it as "old news".
Kit, I suspect the public will see it that way too. But what brings you down is rarely the public, it's someone who wants you gone finding a way to scare the right people about the public effect. If the MSM runs with the Hillary story, she would be finished whether the public cares or not. Sadly, I don't think anyone important on the left wants her gone.
While the right gets to indulge itself in schadenfreud(sp?) they have never held any of these leftists to any kind of high standard anyway. The left built them up, propped them up, overlooked their serial lies and b.s. and generally elevated them to their place in society. They (these avatars of excellence) never had to face the intense scrutiny and research into their real (and made up) past, so when they are caught in the slightest provable fabrication, they collapse. Exhibit #1 - Obama. If half of what the right claims is true of this guy, he should have been run out of town on rails and laughed at for even thinking of getting into national politics. I'm sure we will start to "discover" all kinds of links, associations, historical cheating etc., about him now that he has shown himself to the left that he really doesn't give a hoot about anyone else but him and a few close friends and advisors.
This will get interesting.
Bob
I second what Kit says. If you want to laugh like nobody's watching, do yourself a favor and check out the thread #BrianWilliamsMisrembers on Twitter. It's gold, Jerry. GOLD!
The only reason Williams came clean about his story was because he got caught, which makes him an even bigger idiot and liar.
Bob, This is where the right has handicapped itself. If more conservatives went into journalism, comedy, and other culture-forming pursuits, we would be better able to give it the full court press it takes to expose these people. But too many on the right disdain those fields and tell their kids (and anyone who will listen) to avoid them. The right also doesn't do uncivil protests like the left does to harass these people. Basically, we are our own worst enemies at moments like this because we don't understand how to reach the public.
Writer X, I've seen some great take offs on this, and your are right, they are hilarious!
The odd thing about Williams being exposed now is that everyone has known about this for years, so I wonder why they chose to "discover" it now? Something must have changed to remove his protected status.
Andrew - Social media is to blame. The enemy of lies (sometimes)
My favorite part of this is how the media is trying to downplay and soft-soap this as not being so bad. He was just "misremembered". Hey politicians like Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld really lied and people died. No one died because of Williams' lie...er...misremembrance. Well, his credibility died, but who needs credibility as a news anchor anyway, right?
Lot's of us military types view this as Stolen Valor. We just have no use for people like Williams. If anyone remembers, Dan Rather used to pay troops to shoot their guns while he did reports "from the field" in Vietnam. I noticed while I was in England that they don't put much stock in these "news readers" as they call them.
Bev, What amazes me is how they can cover for him, especially with something that so clearly cannot be just a misremember. This is an invention, i.e. a lie, and that's obvious.
But then, leftists always protect each other until it becomes absolutely impossible.
Critch, I understand that in some cases, it's actually a crime to pretend to have certain military experience when you don't. In any event, it's really crappy.
Look how they protected Bill Clinton. They would have buried the Monica story if it hadn't of been for Matt Drudge. They still try to show Monica as the aggressor in that sordid little affair. They will choke before you hear them go after Hillary over her sniper story.
I too have wondered about possible fallout for Mrs. Clinton. For sure one reason NBC wants this to go away is so it won't leech over on to her coronation. But there are a lot of people on the left who don't like her, and want Warren. They might just find this as just the excuse needed to sack her. Warren is who the left really wants, but don't see her as anywhere nearly electable as Clinton. Now the one thing Mrs. Clinton has been really good at doing is slipping out of tight corners. Ever since the Chicago Board of Trade scandal and Watergate, and finding missing documents in a white house closet, she has gotten away clean.
The left tends to circle the wagon, but the one thing Fox Nes, New Republic, Weekly Standard, Wall Stret Journal could have in their favor is that nobody can deny she lied and was outed. Thus, if the right keeps pounding it long enough, people might just begin to realize the linkage is appropriate. If you cannot trust a news anchor who flat out lies, why would you elect a person to the leader of th free world. Will it go down this way. I don't know, but I sure hope so. She is the only Democrat with, God knows why, a built in huge base.
I didn't mean Watergate, of course. I meant White Water. I do think Warren would accept a "draft" if Mrs. Clinton is forced out. And my point is, it is one thing to shut down the Obama scandals because the administration would not investigate itself (no special prosecutor.) But the campaign rhetoric of Benghazi denials vs. a record of lying could be effective because it cannot be factually countered.
"What amazes me is how they can cover for him, especially with something that so clearly cannot be just a misremember."
Andrew, this actually doesn't amaze at all. I'm with Bev on this one. This was almost certainly the result of social media, not an insider job.
(I know I covered a lot of this on your previous posts for the White House Correspondents' Dinner and Sochi Olympics, so I'll try not to repeat myself too much.)
Williams may be duller than dull, but he still has the final word on NBC News. Like Lauer on the 'Today Show,' he's a boss behind the scenes (managing editor, to be precise). This means he also calls all the shots. As I noted in those other blogs, the culture of TV news these days is to tow the line and make sure the bosses are happy. An insider job would mean the end of that employee's career. (Along with being fired from NBC, said hypothetical employee would be almost unhirable anywhere else.)
Social media, on the other hand, has been more powerful behind the scenes than anyone could have guessed. These days, TV shows' popularity seem to be judged by posts and tweets as much as (if not more so) than ratings. Honestly, this could go a long way to explaining how low-rated shows and personalities stay on-air for unjustifiably long periods of time despite tanking Nielson performances and bottom-feeder viewings on the websites. It seems that television execs see mass amounts of coverage (i.e. number of posts) on social media sites as a better indicator of popularity (even if those thousands of posts are only written by a handful of fans). Numbers just matter- as long as the posts are mostly positive.
And it works the other way. In this case, as you noted, it started with a negative Facebook post. It then took off like wildfire. With social media being the current decider of popularity, the execs took this one seriously. ("But it's just a random soldier saying what we've known for a decade now." "No, it's on SOCIAL MEDIA! That's what counts! If we don't act fast, we're done for!")
So, that's how I see the whole thing playing out. Like mob skimming in the Las Vegas casinos in the 1970's, this was a dirty little secret that most (if not all) of the employees at NBC knew about. Then something happened that blew it all up. In the case of the former, it was the stupidity of Tony Spilotro and ego of Lefty Rosenthal. In the latter, it was a Facebook post, which, in these days, carries more credibility and firepower than any form of document currently in existence.
And speaking of Williams being duller than dull, he was the commencement speaker at the college graduation ceremony for one of my brothers. Man, did he almost put me to sleep. (I got through it with a little help from Robert Louis Stevenson and Jules Verne, if you get my drift.) I'd try to tell you what he said, but, as I noted, he was busy putting me to sleep. He did note the irony of his being at a college commencement, saying that he didn't actually graduate from college.
And, interestingly, he was the best commencement speaker my brothers and I got. At my ceremony, (a blisteringly hot, humid, and overcast June day), Christopher Reeve bored everyone to death by just reading a bunch of stats his assistant copied into a "speech" the night before at the last minute. At the party afterwards, all anyone could talk about was how pathetic he was. (No, I don't care how many native Alaskans graduate from my school! Cut the identity politics and talk about something interesting, for crying out loud!)
But my youngest brother took the prize. His speaker was...wait for it...
Susan Rice! I honestly can't convey the pain of that experience except that a root canal minus anesthesia would've been more bearable. In the end, all I can really say is thank God for iPods and Metallica.
Critch, True. But again, we had no journalists to counter that or comedians to lampoon it. So they got away with it.
Jed, I think she will get away with it unless the left decides they have a better replacement. And since I don't hear anyone on the left screaming for her head at the moment, I don't think they will try anything. In other words, she's safe.
Rustbelt, Thanks for the fascinating take on the power of social media over television. That would explain a lot about how popularity is actually rated.
As an aside, the "insider" could be anyone with enough authority to push the network. It could be a rival anchor, it could be a corporate officer, or even a key investor who sees this as their chance to change the team.
Rustbelt, Good graduation speakers are sadly rare, but you rarely find anything as bad as you've described. You have my sympathies!
Except this one - Every graduating class should listen to this one - Adm McRaven as the commencment speaker at UT Austin in 2014 - LINK
FYI - He has just been installed as the Chancellor of the UT University system...
Andrew - you are likely correct. But, if Williams is forced to step down, it brings her lie back into play. That permits anti-Hillary people (left or right) to focus on it, and it won't be comfortable for her. She better have a good response ready because people do not like valor stealers. "Mrs. Clinton, Brian Williams was forced to resign for clearly being less than truthful about his experiences in harm's way. Lack of trust became the issue, and yet you did essentially the same thing. Why would people trust a president who so clearly tried to steal military valor?" It is a long shot, but I can hope .....
Bev, His was good. There have been some other great speakers, though I can't think of them off the top of my head.
Jed, It does. I would love to see this bring her down, but I doubt the left will allow that until they get a replacement.
BTW, NBC is now investigating yet another claim by Williams in which he reported a near miss from a missile while in a helicopter...even though the real missile was miles away.
It's looking like the end is near for Brian.
so they are going to suspend him without pay for 6 months. Big deal, he makes $13 million a year. You knew this had to happen. Now it takes some heat off Clinton.
Hi Andrew!! By this time, what can be said about BW that hasn't been said? Just wanted to leave you a note that I read this today and it is a hilariously dry accounting! You hit it out of the park!
Thanks Cris! I'm always happy to hear from you! :D
As for Williams...yeah, there's not much left to say.
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