NBC: At least 10 Brian William embellishments
While NBC fans are calling for the return of Brian Williams to the network, CNNMoney says that the network has found “at least 10” incidents of Williams embellishing his news stories;
But The New York Times and The Washington Post reported new details on Friday night that painted Williams in a decidedly negative light.
The Times reported that Esposito’s team has uncovered “discrepancies” in Williams’ accounts of his reporting from Tahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt in 2011.
The Times said it was one of a “half-dozen instances” that have raised eyebrows internally.
The Post reported that the investigation has “turned up 11 instances in which the anchorman publicly embellished details of his reporting exploits.”
From the Washington Post;
The investigators, led by NBC News senior executive producer Richard Esposito, have also raised doubts about Williams’ comments about his experiences covering Israel’s military action against Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. In an interview with a student-run television station at Fairfield University in Connecticut in 2007, Williams said he saw rockets passing “just beneath” the Israel helicopter in which he was traveling. But Williams gave a less harrowing account of the same trip in an NBC News blog a year earlier.
From the New York Times;
In an appearance [in February 2011] with Jon Stewart on “The Daily Show,” Mr. Williams described his reporting from the square. Speaking of clashes between protesters seeking the overthrow of the Egyptian government, and a pro-government group on horses and camels, he said he had “actually made eye contact with the man on the lead horse.” Mr. Stewart then referred to reports that the pro-government group had used whips. “Yeah,” Mr. Williams replied, “he went around the corner after I saw him, they pulled out whips and started beating human beings on the way.”
The NBC News report on the clash between the protesters that day did not show Mr. Williams in Tahrir Square during the protest. Subsequent reports said that Mr. Williams was reporting “from a balcony overlooking Tahrir Square,” rather than from inside the square itself, a description that matches footage that was broadcast, and that he repeated in an interview with The New York Times last year.
Apparently, it all comes from that nasty habit that journalists have lately of inserting themselves into the news rather than just reporting the facts. The Post and the Times, of the old print media, seem to be enjoying this scandal that doesn’t involve their own employees a little too much.
Category: Media
Dear CNN, NYT, and WAPO,
Might want to look in the mirror first.
Sincerely,
Peter Arnett, Eason Jordan, Jayson Blair, and Janet Cooke.
Exactly.
I remember reading something by a tenured university professor at a major college, where it was his experience that the least-principled students were the journalism majors.
The media created the anything goes culture and then its ‘journalism’ arm pretends that its members have morals, scruples, and a professional work ethic. These megastars of TV news command millions in salary and are treated like little queens and kings. For what? What have they contributed to society, to the country?
Pretty hair and a perky smile. Not much else.
I can think of a dozen pornstars who’ve made a more substantial contribution to society just off the top of my head.
I really wonder if Brian Williams isn’t the tip of a big, shitty iceberg. I remember reading AP stories about things that happened while I was in Afghanistan that were WAY off track. Truth, like brains and common sense, are obviously not considered necessary in the urinalism field.
Word!!
And what is it with Bri-Bri and helicopter stories?
To chime in from the other side, while I believe that Williams should never work in the industry again, there are thousands of journalists that do believe in truth and integrity.
I’ve worked with many civilian journalists who are appalled by actions of Williams and others who give the field a bad name.
To say that Williams is indicative of all journalist is the same as equating Manning to all members of the Armed Forces.
Most of these so-called journalists, not reporters, are wannabe novelists who have no ability to stick to doing anything for more than a few days, at best.
In this case, Williams should take up writing novels. He obviously wants to tell tall tales that use the first person. That way, he could be in the thick of things all he wants.
Babs (Take my nuts, please) Manning is not understood by anyone of reasonable mind to be representative of the US Armed Forces. Only to the extent that some people thought Manning was justified in doing what he/she/it did was he/she/it of any consequence. On the other hand, Williams was the anchor of NBC News for years. He was THE FACE of TV journalism to many millions of viewers, just as that other embodiment of journalistic integrity, Dan (Memogate) Rather, had been. All of that aside, the presumption of impartiality in news reporting disappeared many years ago. The Left, through its indoctrination camps, such as the Columbia and University of Wisconsin schools of journalism, permeate the news-writers and news-reading professions. There isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between news stories and editorials, and, which stories are covered (and spotlighted) and which are buried is the most effective employment and demonstration of the media’s bias. So, no, I am not drinking that Kool-Aid you’re serving.
Before the TAH crew starts forming a posse to go string up a few reporters, it might be pointed out that the journalism community itself is currently split in a bitter fight about this same stuff. One of the more interesting flags that’s gone up is that a key source in the Williams story is the release of information by NBC itself. Williams is probably toast.
One the other hand, if somebody told me that journalism is filled with charlatans and fools, I would tend to agree that they’re about half right.
Having worked in the newspaper business, I don’t ever, not once, remember thinking the business was fundamentally sleazy. In some ways, it wasn’t all that much different from working intel in the military. It was never my function to tell the reader what he wanted to hear; it was to go someplace, observe and report the facts, and let the reader draw his own conclusions.
For those who would single out Peter Arnett, Eason Jordan, Jayson Blair, and Janet Cooke, it might be mentioned that the New York Times alone has around 1100 people working news side. A figure roughly equal to an infantry battalion. Can anybody on TAH honestly say that a group of grunts that size is going to be without 6 or 8 bad apples?
History also has a tendency to remember the Ernie Pyles and Ed Murrows of the trade; people like Williams and Blair become a footnote.
There is no desire by anyone here to, as you say, “string up a few reporters.” On the contrary, we cherish a free press that is not threatened by anyone. Besides, in recent history, it is the reporters who seem to stoke the fires of violence by their sensational and sleazy reporting. The current generation of reporters have, in the main, abdicated their neutrality. A conspiracy of effort among reporters to advance a political agenda which they favor is a matter of fact, not crazed imagination. I give you JournoList, for one. And then there’s the greatest of all proofs: the idiot in the White House. Talk about a cover job when it came to him! So, no, there aren’t a few bad apples as there are in any large organization or profession. In the case of popular journalism, I am hard pressed to ID the few good apples there may be.
Problem is, Perry, those names were right off the top of my head. A minor bit of Google-Fu would reveal a whole crop of journalists whose ethics were challenged at best, and outright gone at worst.
As far as the NYT goes, fish rots from the head down. Draw from that what you will.
Looks like a job for “Icelandic Media” to report all the embellishments lol
Better a daughter a whore than a son a reporter.
For my part I say, shit on this Williams, let him go to green pastures and graze with the rest of the BULL SHIT artists, might be a good idea if he takes that shit ass smile with him. Nice to be back with all of you TAH guys again.
Sam
Good to see you, Sam.
Where ya been Sam?
I trust all is well?
OC
Williams IS NOT COMING back.
He is currently negociating his exit.
I final report is not good.
I knows peoples at NBC mothership.
That is all!
PS: Williams was universally (get the joke) disliked, not trusted and was a known prolific BS artiste at NBC.
His being disliked by so many in the biz would explain why they are willing to throw him under the bus. It’s not as if media lying and/or failing to fact check is news. Almost all of them seem to cut corners which alter the story.
Hell, Brokaw was wanting him fired from the get go… no suspension, just fire him and find someone else.
“Apparently someone saw me on TV “texting” during the dinner. FTR I was taking notes. On my phone. Because it’s 2015. #WHCD”
What’s that? That’s the tweeted explanation from Wash Post columnist Helena Andrews as to why, during the playing of the National Anthem at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, she was texting. “Because it’s 2015.” You see, the National Anthem is irrelevant, it’s passe, in 2015.
hell, at least she wasn’t taking a selfie. or was that 2014?
Yeah … That is NO excuse. I stood up in a bar, removed my cover and stood at attention (although I could have saluted covered in doors) during the National Anthem prior to Mets and Yankees game (Subway Series) last night.
Texting during National Anthem, UNSAT …. My 9 year old knows better! He salutes!
Oh, fergot to mention I was asked by a Euro-Trash type … “Why did you do that” … In some friggin’ weird accent.
How soon until he is the talking head for Al Jazeera USA or whatever it is called?
I think he started in 2004?
You mean that network that I like to call “Al Jizz”?
Williams is a douche, no doubt about it. But find me another member of the infotainment media and I will find you another douche, an both sides of the coin. Limbaugh? Douche. OReilly? Douche. Jerry Rivers? Douche. There are no Morrows or even Cronkites out there any more. They are all attention whore puppets with good hair and better teeth. Cant believe a thing they say…
Yep. They really are. Well, I don’t who Jerry Williams is, actually. But I’m not taking sides. I wouldn’t want to spend 5 mins with any of them.
To- OWB & OC,
Everything is going real well, thanks for asking. Didn’t mean to stay away so long, but had afew setback with my COPD, but I think we have everything under control, guess when you hit 89 years of living you have a few break-downs every now and then. Anyway thanks for you both for your concern.
Sam Naomi
Good to know. It’s just about plantin’ season out your way, so healthy is the only option. 😉
Sam: good to see you back, amigo. Take care of yourself.
Sam, I train retrievers for a hobby and one of the fellas I train with is just a year shy of you. His favorite saying is “gettin’ old ain’t for sissies”.
Be well my friend.
OC