NBC execs were warned about BW made-up stories. If his memory was faulty at the beginning, surely he was reminded of the correct version. How do you still make excuses for him? It may not be a big deal fibbing a news story anymore. What that little truth for when the story sounds better without it? Faulty memory excuse is a bit pathetic.
stolen valor according to wikipedia:
minus the awards, that is exactly what he did.
He did it repeatedly and systemically over a period of time of at least a decade.
This is not “a mistake at work”
This is not “misremembering”… this is repeatedly telling lies for personal (and corporate) benefits.
^^^I haven’t followed this closely at all, but what military decorations did he receive. Surely if it was something related to being embedded during one of the wars, then the military people he was with at the time would have corrected any false stories.
Soccerguy said “minus the awards”.
I don’t care about made up stories. It’s not a good idea to say them on TV but, to me, the real the issue is the way this reveals the general hypocrisy of the business: all these people want to be stars on camera and they make loads of ethical compromises to get there and they don’t like when the public sees a bit of the reality.
I don’t care about made up stories either, as long as a supposed journalist doesn’t try to pass them off as news.
I guess I must be the only one around who actually feels bad for the guy. Seems like he is completely humiliated, his career destroyed, for his actions. Yet politicians blatantly lie all the time, about things that will actually affect people’s lives, not just self aggrandizing, and they get away with it, even when everybody knows they are lying. This seems like small potatoes in comparison. What is it, we expect that politicians are all liars, so it’s just fine, but a journalist can’t take a little creative liberty? I’ll bet there are plenty of journalists that stretch the truth in their reporting.
It just seems like this has turned into such a witch hunt, with people smelling blood in the water, like sharks going in for the kill. I wonder how many of these people have exaggerated stories in their own lives.
Agree with you, busdriver. So many go right for the jugular.
I agree bus driver and jym626. If he embellished his part in a couple of situations, no big deal for me. As long as he is reporting current, daily news, that’s all I care about. Ask me how big the baracuda was that I caught in the Bahamas in the 1960’s.
While its certainly never a good idea to lie, and news anchors should be both likeable and believable/trustworthy ( BW has experienced serious damage to that), people do sometimes embellish stories. I’ve listened to war veteran stories and have wondered how many are exaggerated. I asked DH if what BW did was like stolen valor. He said the only similarity is claiming involvement in an incident that is not true. Stolen valor is a federal crime, wearing medals someone didn’t rightfully earn. In 2012, The supreme Court ruled that lying about military heroics was constitutionally protected speech unless there was intent to gain a benefit or some other intend to engage in fraud. A new law was signed in 2013 " making it illegal to make the claims with the intent to obtain money, property or other tangible benefits." The intent of stolen valor laws is to keep people from “using it to receive the benefits of decorations of valor, and they were getting monetary benefit”. This is very different from the disingenuous report by BW.
http://www.military.com/daily-news/2013/06/03/obama-signs-new-stolen-valor-act.html
John Stewart addressed the BW story yesterday in classic John Stewart style " Why… Why Bri… Why Bri lie…"
And the interview with Stars and Strips reporter Travis Tritten has just been released. It was just played on GMA . Heres the stars and stripes link, I believe has the audio. Apologies if its been posted already. http://www.stripes.com/news/us/in-his-words-brian-williams-interview-with-stars-and-stripes-1.328590
You can count me in as one who hopes he survives this. I watch the evening news, fuddy-duddy that I am, and I like watching Bruan Williams. I hope he has learned his lesson and can move on.
I don’t feel sorry for him at all, but I agree with the rest of your post, busdriver. Perhaps the answer is for journalists to spend more time holding politicians accountable for their blatant lies, and less time on self aggrandizement.
IDK, it sounds like a slippery slope to me. Since we let a murderer get away sometimes, we should also forgive a jail guard for beating up prisoners?
If he survives, I think he will up his game so that his stories are beyond doubt. At least that’s what I would like to think under the heading of “lesson learned.”
Learning lessons is hard work. People don’t learn lessons unless they are held accountable. Did Wall Street learn their lessons after 2008? And since big guys on Wall Street got off easy, should we also let Bernie Madoff out of prison? What’s a few billion when WS swindled trillions?
I’m not a big fan of public humiliation, though there are some people who are absolutely shameless. It just doesn’t seem worthwhile to spend weeks making a spectacle out of someone. It seems like enough is enough, and to make such a continuing horrendous deal out of these exaggerations implies that we think journalists are telling every single detail as truth, like human computers. Do any of them, or do they report through their biases and varying interpretations? I wish they were all completely honest, but I don’t imagine they are. I would love to have politicians held to 1/100th of the scrutiny of BW.
There’s a big difference between embellishing a story at a cocktail party and another thing to do it on the national news as part of your job as a news anchor.
That’s true, but at this point, what’s left to do? Ban him from working? Dig into his background for the last 40 years, and question everything he ever said? Arrest him? Publically execute him?
i am sure people get fired for less not infrequently. Besides, the way I see it people drag him throigh the mud partially because they don’t believe he will be held accountable. Not many people with power are held responsible. If you don’t like mud throwing, we should hold people accountable. When that happens, the public will lose interest.
Bring a highly paid news anchor on a national TV broadcast is a privilege, not a right. I don’t see anything wrong with Williams having natural consequences of his serial lying.