Brian Williams and vets
Apparently, Brian Williams is taking himself off the air because he’s taking so much heat from his little tale about being the victim of Iraqi RPG fire.
In a memo Saturday to NBC News staff that was released by the network, the anchorman said that as managing editor of “NBC Nightly News” he is taking himself off the broadcast for several days. Weekend anchor Lester Holt will fill in, Williams said.
NBC News refused to comment Saturday on when or whether Williams would return and who would decide his future.
Williams, however, said he would be back.
Yahoo News writes that Williams isn’t alone in his story-stretching, ticking off a list of fabricators like Hillary Clinton and Tom Harkin. They forget about Scott Beauchamp who the media defended for his flights of fancy about his time in Iraq. Jesse MacBeth also comes to mind, although not a journalist, he was quoted throughout the media until military folks policed up his BS. And who could forget Dan Rather – the fellow who coined the phrase “fake but accurate” and who is now supporting Williams.
There are calls for folks to leave Williams alone – they even call it “false memories” like it was his brain’s fault – even though the reportage that went out right after incident was titled “Target Iraq: Helicopter NBC’s Brian Williams Was Riding In Comes Under Fire“. So he must’ve misremembered it moments after it happened. Of course, the troops aren’t going to leave Williams alone.
Why? Well, Williams is taking this hit for more than a decade of their treatment by the media. Look at how the media wouldn’t let go of issues like weeks, months, years, of Abu Ghraib, the urination videos, Haditha, those pictures in the LA Times of troops posing with the bodies of suicide bombers, SSG Robert Bales. How many other stories about the troops that media used to make them look sub-human even though most of them had nothing to with these big media events.
How about the New York Times releasing classified information that may or may not have resulted in deaths on the battlefield? How about the media running with the so-called “Collateral Murder” video without a bit of context from the people who were there.
How about the countless articles about veterans being bad and the media always linking it to battlefield stress, whether or not the veteran involved had ever been near combat.
It’s probably unfair that Williams is taking all of this heat from veterans, but then it was unfair the way that the media has treated the troops and veterans as long as they’re fighting a war that the media opposed on political grounds.
So, media, here you go – your own Abu Ghraib. All journalists lie – always. Just like all soldiers torture prisoners with naked pyramids, and urinate on their dead bodies. Live with it.
By the way, I hope Williams doesn’t resign and I hope he keeps on doing whatever he does at NBC – that makes me better than the journalists who called for General McCrystal to resign.
Next!!!
Category: Media
Time was that Americans received our news from three sources: daily newspapers, radio, and television. Each fairly corresponded to a time of day. Newspapers were for the morning, providing fuller, usually more detailed stories of local, state, national, and international events. Radio provided little more than headline reading and, occasionally, on-the-scene reports of breaking stories during the workday. In the evening came the television news, replete with film and reports of the day’s events.
“And that’s the way it was,” Walter Cronkite used to say. The Huntley-Brinkley report had an equally famous closing, with the two, one in New York and the other in D.C, wishing each other good night. Those were, I suppose, the golden days of television news when the newsmen (there were no women anchors) were trusted. What was important to America was what the newsmen told us was important. They did this then, as they do today, I presume, by what they chose to cover and what they chose not to cover. Then came cable television, notably CNN, and the internet, and everything changed. It is now quaint to buy a daily newspaper; radio is chiefly for local traffic, weather reports, and talk shows. And television? I really don’t know. I do not recall ever watching Brian Williams and I haven’t watched network TV news in years. I don’t need people to tell me what’s important and, thanks to the internet, I don’t have to await the evening hour to learn what happened during the day. For me, at least, television news has gone the way of the dodo. And I’m good with that.
The media taking the military for granted and treating them with disrespect? True, for at least the last 50 years!! But, WE KNEW THAT!
If Williams could, he’d be wearing class A’s with a chest full of medals topped of with a MOH….he’s a fake, phony and a fraud and he can kiss my Irish ass!
Way back when, reporters reported the news, not made the news. I kinda miss those days.
Lack of integrity in reporters is nothing new. They used to have some, but when Walter Cronkite admitted that he lied about Vietnam, I stopped listening to any of them.
They’re mostly only good for reporting local stories now, and even then, they seem intent on not getting the story but rather, on being in front of the camera.
Remember that doofus who was a ‘stringer’ during the hunt for the Boston bombers? If she was a reporter, I’m a banana split sundae.
News reporting is no longer about getting the story straight. It’s about getting the most sensational angle even if it means distorting the events and downright lying to the public about it.
If integrity ever returns to reporting the news, and people like Peter Jennings, a Canadian who worked for ABC, ever reappear, someone please let me know.
Oh, and those ‘journalists’ who go to hotspots to ‘get the other side’s story’? How many now have been taken prisoner by IS and killed on camera for it? How many families have been damaged by these foolhardy adrenaline junkies?
In the meantime, I take what they say with a grain of salt becuase I figure they wouldn’t know how to tell the truth, even if it walked up and smacked some of them on the ass.
“News reporting is no longer about getting the story straight. It’s about getting the most sensational angle even if it means distorting the events and downright lying to the public about it.”
Well stated.
Why?
Because Enquiring Minds Want To Know
That’s the current standard, no?
I suggest you forward all further inquires to the Creative News Network.
Nah’ — the National Enquirer is more accurate in its reporting. As the biproduct of a Human-Alien dalliance, I know first-hand.
(^__^)
Brian Williams is nothing more than the latest version of a “SCUD Stud”.
More like ” an alleged stud that was a dud”. 😀
As has been said frequently, the media gave up on unbiased reporting many moons ago. Their primary focus now is on what will sell advertising.
The 3 truths of journalism-
1. If it bleeds, it leads.
2. If it smells it sells.
3. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.
The 24 hour news cycle demands fresh meat every hour.
Ex,
It’s common for people to tar all journalists with the same brush, but the internal dynamics of the business are more complicated. In general, there’s a split between legacy print media and electronic, with pretty much a mutual level of disdain coming from each. The print side, for example, has long and often considered TV news anchors as not much more than posturing and preening actors employed in the entertainment industry. True or not, until recently, the net effect was to keep the electronic side from getting too full of itself.
One big problem is that starting in 2005, around $50 Billion per year in advertising revenue going to print media dropped by 60 percent, and the bulk of it went to the internet and five companies who produce very little original content. Google, for example, accounts for roughly 40 percent of all online ad sales and generates no content at all.
So if you want know why the news business is so bad these days, it’s because the business model is badly broken at a fundamental level.
As NASA said of the moonshot: No bucks, no Buck Rogers.
The Big 3 network newscasts have had roughly the same audience since the late 1970’s-early 1980’s. The only problem is, how much has the population of the USA grown in the same period? 35 percent? 40 percent? More?
The cable news broadcasts were, at least in the early 1990’s, a real threat to the Big 3, but only until the audiences realized they were regurgitating the same tired crap and leftist slant. Only when FNC comes along does there come a challenger to the major network news, and even then, it’s shoved off as “unreliable, untrustworthy” etc.
We know the media is biased. Most of us who give a damn either get our news from multiple sources, or don’t even bother with broadcast news. Brian Williams is just the latest in a series of not journalists lying, but hacks with an agenda telling BS stories.
It’s interesting that he is being allowed to take himself off the air. Could be for any number of reasons, some of which might even be legitimate. Kinda gives one pause, though, when considering that few of the rest of us would be given that opportunity when found to be unable to do our job credibly.
Another reason that Brian has problems is his “story”(lie) that he saw the body of a man float past his hotel window in the French Quarter during Katrina. Even though the water covering the roads in that area was measured in inches. And, the man that Brian witnessed, um, heard about, who jumped from a balcony in the Superdome. Not to mention, Brian bravely facing down the street gangs who were infesting his hotel, that no one else saw.
But, he’s the “managing editor” of NBC Nightly News. Maybe that’s why he’s “allowed” to take himself off the air?
I rather imagine the CEO of whatever company owns NBC the network sent the word down the line to tell brie that his services were under review and he should consider having his contract bought out.
I’m sure he gets paid far more than he’s worth, and his contract probably has another couple of years to run, which means giving a megabucks check to buy him out is a whole lot cheaper than being sued for breach of contract.
Comcast owns NBC.
And for Brian-boi, the hits just keep on coming regarding his veracity. In addition to his false story from Iraq and questions raised about his Katrina reporting, several of his other past claims now are getting scrutiny and seem highly questionable if not outright false. From this morning’s Drudge:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/02/07/brian-williams-over-israel-rockets-passed-just-beneath-the-helicopter-i-was-riding-in/
https://grabien.com/feature.php?id=17&from=allfeatures
http://pagesix.com/2015/02/08/residents-debunk-brian-williams-encounter-with-christmas-bandit/?_ga=1.73668562.13517081.1423409285
Oh, and apparently NBC knew a year ago that Williams was blowing smoke about his past “derring-do”, but chose to ignore it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/opinion/sunday/maureen-dowd-anchors-aweigh.html?_r=0
Best I can tell, the term LSoS is apropos. But maybe I’m wrong, and this is all just “false memories”.
The problem with reporters these days is they make the mistake of believing they are the news instead of just a mouth piece. That’s why shows like Katie Couric’s fail. She thought people were tuning in for her when they were trying to just get the news.
Since when haven’t the big liberal snooze media outlets biased and editorialized their coverage at least since the 1960’s and there are plenty of examples of it before then!
Piss on Brian Williams and his ilk in the liberal mainstream media, I’ll con to boycott them in every way I can!
He’s just taking a little time off while they change the lettering on his office door from “Managing Editor” to “Imagining Editor.”
Ah … I have a NBC story to tell, however because of Williams, I (TAH) can’t tell it now.
Criptic message!
I think in the old days that journalists protected each other, and wouldn’t print derogatory information as has been done in this case. To hear it told, in Maureen Dowd’s column as well as other places, “everyone knew” about Brian telling whoppers, but no one called him on the carpet about it. It took a Stars & Stripes journalist to break ranks and investigate based on a comment from a veteran on a Brian Williams story. Could be that the Stars & Stripes journalist wasn’t clued into the “professional courtesy” of not reporting on a fellow journalist.
Or maybe that reporter has some integrity and despises people who lie, as brie-brie does.
A few years back he did a PSA in which he said, “I’ve got your six.” It now appears he also has our honor. Does he have my six? Not so much.
Morley Safer, asking a Soldier to light the hut with his Zippo, while he had it filmed.
“This is Morley Safer, reporting from Vietnam, while American Soldiers are burning and pillaging innocent villages throughout the country…”
Nothing new here, just the names and faces,
Boston Herald is reporting that in 2006 Williams was supposed to MC the MOH national convention in Boston, but quickly left for a “pressing engagement”. Turned out to be a comedy bit on Saturday Night Live.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/columnists/peter_gelzinis/2015/02/gelzinis_brian_williams_snub_of_vets_no_laughing
The entire media circus is the suck, be it left or right leaning. I can almost cut Williams and his poetic/journalistic license some slack, as he did a good thing for a distinguished Vet…but he aint Ernie Pyle, Ernest Hemingway or Edward R. Morrow.
I never clearly understood what “hoisted on his own petard” meant. It’s a polite way of saying he stepped on his dick. Well…. bye!
Hung by his own short hairs.
Lester Holt opened the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. At 1844, Lester mentioned Brian would be taking some time off as he delt with the issue.
Netted out:
Brian is cleaning his office out, preparing his resignation notice, well in advance of NBC’s investigation that would no doubt result in a termination for multiple episodes of lying.
He will resign before the termination.
Well, today it was announced that NBC News has suspended Brian Williams for six months without pay.
That is a net loss of $6,500,000 (yes: he makes $13m/year). However, since he is worth 40,000,000 … I think he will weather the storm.
http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/brian-williams-net-worth/
Walter Cronkite by no means was a neutral newscaster. TET 68…
Hey Brian Williams, from this day forward, I will always enjoy myself every time I fart in your general direction!!
Maybe from here on out I’ll refer to every fart I cut as “Releasing a Brian Williams war story”.
Personally, I think brie-brie is completely forgettable.
In some not-too-far off future, if someone refers to him, we can rightfully say ‘Who?’
Much like Commander Phil Monkress’ senior staff at All-Points Logistics when you ask them questions about Phildo.
I mean, I know who signs my extremely meager paycheck….
You know, you guys regularly want bodaprez kicked out of office or taken to the cleaners, and I keep telling you it’s better if he just fades away into the nothing. He and williams have the same things in common: they lie like scatter rugs, they have no integrity, and neither of them is particularly bright.
They need to be forgotten, not ousted -just let it go.
I heard he cut a deal:
John Stewart goes to NBC and Williams go to Comedy Central.
Equal trade!
In The Continuing Saga of Sheer Stupidity, Brie-brie Williams has been suspended for 6 months without pay.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/frantic-efforts-at-nbc-to-curb-rising-damage-caused-by-brian-williams/ar-AA9hp0S
This is right in the middle of negotiations by Comcast to buy the network or some such thing. It might be smart of Comcast to either back away from the negotiating table.
I’m quite sure now that this is not the end of this sordid tale.
If he is terminated I can only imagine he would have no issue securing immediate employment with Commander Phil Monkress and All-Points Logistics as their official spokesperson.
It’s only Friday the 13th, right? And more questions are being asked about the stories relayed by Brie-brie Williams.
http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/brian-williams-reporting-now-questioned-on-berlin-wall-navy-seals/ar-AA9mY34
No, he was not embedded with SEAL Team 6. The SEAL teams don’t let reporters embed with them, or send them mementoes. And his predecessor Tom Brokaw was at the fall of the Berlin Wall, not Williams. He just could not stop lying once he got started.
I think Green Thumb is right: this guy is prime APL material.
Ex, I’m just waiting for the next fairy tale to come from Brie.
You know, the fairy tale of how he and his father were in the stands at Yankee Stadium on October 1, 1961 when Roger Maris hit his 61st home run to break Babe Ruth’s single season record. Brie was only two years old at the time, but his father caught the ball and gave it to him as a play toy.
However on April 8th, 1974 at Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta, again both he and his father were in the stands when Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run to break the Babe’s all time homer record, but this time Brie elbowed his father out of the way and caught that ball on his own.
Both balls are now proudly displayed on the fireplace mantle at his gazillion dollar home.
So now we have “the rest of the story” and Paul Harvey is undoubtedly spinning in his grave.
Am I the only American not living off the grid who has never watched a Williams broadcast? There must be another one or two here at TAH who doesn’t watch network news.
I’m pretty sure the last time I watched an NBC news broadcast was back when Chet Huntley and David Brinkley were still on the air.
Over the years since when I have watched any news it has been on CBS.
Ditto. Network news ceased to be worth the bother a long while back. Fox was/is okay, and now I can get news online.
I think the last time I saw anything on NBC was when Jimmy Carter screwed up the Olympics and NBC had the broadcast contract for that.
2/17 Air Cav…….I too, have never watched Brian Williams, and have not watched broadcast news since the O J Simpson trial!
His lying is sad but the resulting meme’s are funny. The one of him with Apollo 11 is particularly amusing.
The last time I saw Williams on TV was when he played “Little Enos” in the smash hit “Smokey and the Bandit”.
Oh … Sorry wrong Williams.