Commentary
Trust Issues: Brian Williams' Iraq Tall Tale Puts Network News On Trial
- by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, February 6, 2015
Oh no, who will I trust now?
That’s a lament you’re hearing from people who are upset over the revelation that Brian Williams lied about coming under RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) fire while riding in a U.S. military helicopter on a visit to Iraq in 2003. The whole thing flared up quickly and suddenly this week -- fueled in no small measure by the strategy Williams adopted to deal with it.
It’s a common tactic taken up by many public figures in situations such as this one in which the allegations are apparently true: Address them head on and as quickly as possible. If they’re true, own up to them and apologize with great humility.
The reasoning behind this strategy is this: By confronting the situation directly, you accept the fact that you will come under withering fire in the court of public opinion -- i.e., the Internet -- for a short period of time, maybe a few days, until the world turns its short attention span to something new and your wrongdoing fades into the mists of water-colored memory.
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Whether Brian Williams will be so lucky is not something I can judge. It is true that this is a Friday, and news stories such as this one -- which seem so important to everyone at the moment -- have been known to weaken in importance over weekends.
So maybe he’ll weather it and maybe he won’t. What I always question at these times is this trust so many people seem to have when it comes to their news media.
I realize that it’s not wrong to place one’s trust in a TV news anchorman such as Brian Williams. Such people are positioned in such a way that they are cloaked in a presumption of trustworthiness.
It is “network” news, after all -- an institution that for all intents and purposes hasn’t changed that much over the decades, at least in this sense: It’s still the one category of TV news that many people still consider to be “august” and “authoritative,” “accurate” and “true.”
So when one of these “august” anchormen reveals himself to be just another windbag in the tradition of Ted Baxter -- our best-known caricature of an anchorman (along with Ron Burgundy) -- who embellishes, or at worst, makes up stories to inflate his importance, then it’s appropriate to feel like we’ve been had.
Maybe it’s because I have worked in the news business that I have a different take on this “trustworthy” business. I don’t exactly advise trusting no one, but when it comes to news media of all sorts, it’s probably advisable to take some of what you’re seeing and hearing with a grain of salt.
So many stories -- on TV and in newspapers -- contain inaccuracies and/or omit relevant facts that it’s rare to hear or read a “complete” story about just about anything. (Those occasions when some newspapers -- such as The New York Times and Wall Street Journal -- still do “in-depth” investigations are notable exceptions to this “rule,” but not always.)
Moreover, most people don’t even get their news from TV or newspapers anymore (obviously). They get it from late-night monologues delivered by comedians, or in 140-character form on Twitter. And those Tweets are often not news at all, but some person’s snarky opinion about the news.
The fact is, accuracy in reporting -- or more specifically, in the way we receive news -- is scarcer and scarcer today. Maybe that’s why so many people are disappointed in Brian Williams because his newscast and the other ones on ABC and CBS are supposed to be the last bastions of the kind of news that you are supposed to safely assume is accurate and true.
And I suspect that’s still true, despite Williams’ Ted Baxter-like boasting. Maybe the takeaway from this situation is this: It’s probably still okay to trust NBC News and even Williams when he reads the news and then throws it to a correspondent in the field. But when Brian starts to talk about himself, which happens more off the news -- on other shows such as the “Letterman” show, for example -- then you have every right to be wary.
Here’s the strategy I would advise for Brian Williams: Deliver the news, don’t talk about yourself, and cancel all plans to appear on anyone else’s show.
And maybe by Monday we can all forget this ever happened.
If 'accuracy in report' is truly important, then you have an obligation to include information from yesterday's CNN interview with the pilot of the chopper carrying Williams: his chopper did take fire, just not RGB fire. This muddies the water a bit as to whether he was intentionally misrepresenting the facts or did in fact misremember the incident. In fact, the pilot said Williams accounts was mostly correct, just not about an RGB.
Actually, Michael, that story's already been discredited -- by the very reporter who reported it. Here's the link:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/06/media/stelter-iraq-pilots/index.html
Thanks for the link, Thomas. The story just keeps changing. As the author of the piece says, "Bottom line: this pilot is revising his story - and, because of that, I'm revising mine." Seems I'm in the same boat!
See Barbara Lippert's column next to yours.
The “Vast Wasteland” has become the “Wretched Reality” at NBC News. For shame, Comcast & NBC Universal!
When you take two of this week’s Variety headlines together you understand how & why Comcast is destroying NBC News: 1) “Brian Williams Raps Snoop Dogg’s ‘Who Am I’ on ‘The Tonight Show’ – Variety (02.03.15) & 2) “NBC’s Brian Williams Admits He Told False Story About Iraq Expedition” – Variety (02.04.15).
There are three people who need to take responsibility and action on this matter: 1) Brian Williams (NBC Slightly (sic) News Anchor), 2) Pat Fili-Krushel (Chairman of NBCUniversal News Group) & 3) Deborah Mary Turness President of NBC News).
This is more than a disgrace. It is a breach of journalistic integrity and personal ethics.
While there are many good people and fine journalists still within NBC News, the current management team is doing its best to drive the need to operate in “the public interest, convenience and necessity” into the graves of broadcast and journalistic heroes & heroines.
Further, Comcast has transformed NBC News into something far worse than the “vast wasteland” that Newton Minow had foreshadowed for broadcast television; it's now a wretched mess called NBC-TV. “But when television is bad, nothing is worse. … I can assure you that what you will observe is a vast wasteland. You will see a procession of game shows, formula comedies about totally unbelievable families, blood and thunder, mayhem, violence, sadism, murder, western bad men, western good men, private eyes, gangsters, more violence, and cartoons. And endlessly commercials — many screaming, cajoling, and offending. And most of all, boredom. True, you’ll see a few things you will enjoy. But they will be very, very few.” Newton Minow (May 9, 1961)
While one hopes corrective steps can be taken now that have lasting beneficial effects, the pimping, procuring, pandering, prostitution and self-destruction of NBC News seems to be leading to a horrendous national shame and calamity – especially when you consider that there are journalists that have been killed and died to bring us the hard and dangerous truth. Not to mention the US Service Men & Women who really put themselves in harm's way for our safety & protection.
Comcast, it appears, has turned it’s best News Anchor into its worst Make-up Artist.
May the truth set us free of this awful mess that is NBC News 2015.
PS NBC News now plans to investigate itself. So the problem has become the solution. Clever ... and profoundly disappointing yet again!
Your post made me smile, Nicholas--wryly, though, not because what you said is humorous. I just haven't heard "Newton Minow" or "operating...in the public interest" spoken aloud--much less in the same sentence!--since I was a sweet young thing working for an FCC attorney in the '60s! With more than a little sadness, I have to agree with everything you said, although I'm a lot less optimistic than you that "corrective steps [will] be taken". The fox is guarding the henhouse.
Hey, Brian Williams is one of the good guys, nobody's perfect, especially those throwing stones.....get over it.
Of Goats and Dogs...the Brian Williams "Situation" in Perspective:
"Brian Williams is our new Old Testament goat. It's like being the new It Girl, although of course, not quite as festive. And I'm caught up in it, too. It's hard to turn away, and a part of me, the dark part of me with bad self esteem, is cheered. The handsomest, richest, most perfect guy turned out to have truthiness issues; and it was good.
He's our sin offering. Wow, how often do I get to type those words? Not nearly often enough! It's exhilarating. It's Shirley Jackson's "Lottery." Each worsening detail is like a self-esteem ATM.
I'm watching talking heads on the biggest news stations come down on him, and I know some of these most famous men to have been unfaithful, and worse--way worse, with children. They're in the delicious throes of schadenfreude, which part of me is, too. The sweeter part of me, the child, the girl in her little blue kilt, the mom, the nana, the black-belt co-dependent, wants to shake her fist at the bullies. Who here doesn't lie, emebellish, exaggerate? (I'm reminded of the old joke about Jesus telling the crowd who is stoning the adulteress, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Suddenly a woman throws a rock at the adulturess. Jesus looks up, and says, "Oh for Pete's sake, Mother.")
No one, not one single person, has stood up for him. I would, but I'm a lying liar, too--well, maybe not as egregious as Brian Williams. I don't tell people "I looked down the tube of an RPG". Well, maybe that one time I did. But that was just so people would like me more.
I would stand with Mr. Williams, because he's family. There's a scene in Small Victories where I was giving a writing workshop to the prisoners in San Quentin, with my friend Neshama, and she told them. "I'm human. You're human. Let's be in our humanness together for a little while." So yes, I stand with him.
But my solidarity wouldn't mean all that much. My son rolls his eyes sometimes at family gatherings, because the story I've just told has changed from its last telling. But then again, so has his.
The sober people I know began sobriety by minimizing how bad their drinking and drug use was; by the end of the first year, they're copping to the most graphic, disgusting behavior you can imagine. This was definitely my case; I started out mentioning that maybe I had a few too many a couple times a week, to the truth, which was that I was insane, trying to buy opiates, guys, the random RPG. ... By Anne Lamott 02.08.15
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