This Brian Williams mess is just growing is size. It’s really bad, you guys. On Wednesday, Brian Williams apologized on air on the NBC Nightly News. He apologized for “misremembering” a story he had told literally dozens of times in the past 12 years: he had always claimed that in 2003, when he was covering the Iraq War in Iraq that his Chinook had come under RPG fire. He always told the story as a way to explain his friendships with some military men. Except that when some military personnel who were in Iraq at the time started to contradict his story, he claims he simply “misremembered” the event. Stars & Stripes has a lengthy take-down of Williams’ story here.
The fallout from Williams’ admission has been swift and terrible. Social media has been having a field day, with #BrianWilliamsMisremembers trending on Twitter, and every conservative blowhard has luxuriated in the schadenfreude of “liberal” NBC getting a pounding. But it’s more serious than that. People are going through all of Brian’s public statements and it looks like he might have always had a difficult relationship with the truth.
More heroic tales of Brian Williams‘ adventures in journalism are being questioned. The NBC news anchor… is being called out for possibly lying about his experience covering Hurricane Katrina, according to a report. Williams claimed to have gotten dysentery from drinking flood water and seeing dead bodies float past his hotel in the New Orleans French Quarter while covering Hurricane Katrina.
However the The New Orleans Advocate noted that the French Quarter was not flooded and quoted a local health expert who did not recall anyone getting such a stomach ailment. Williams recalled his bout with the bug in interview with Tom Brokaw last year, when he said: “I accidentally ingested some of the floodwater. I became very sick with dysentery.”
The Advocate said a public health official never heard of people getting things like dysentery after the storm.
“I don’t recall a single, solitary case of gastroenteritis during Katrina or in the whole month afterward,” Dr. Brobson Lutz told The Advocate. “I don’t know anybody that’s tried that [drinking flood water] to see, but my dogs drank it, and they didn’t have any problems.”
Williams said also during an interview in 2006 that he saw dead bodies float past his window in the French Quarter.
“When you look out of your hotel window in the French Quarter and watch a man float by face down, when you see bodies that you last saw in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, and swore to yourself that you would never see in your country,” Williams said in 2006. But the French Quarter, the original high ground of New Orleans, was not impacted by the floodwaters that overwhelmed the vast majority of the city, The Advocate said.
He also said in his Brokaw interview: “Our hotel was overrun with gangs, I was rescued in the stairwell of a five-star hotel in New Orleans by a young police officer. We are friends to this day.”
Yeah, it’s bad. I think Williams might have been able to survive a scandal if it was just ONE misremembered story (he would have come out it battered and bruised, but he would have come out it), but this has given critics an excuse to go over EVERY story and if there’s a pattern of misremembered stories, then he’s out of a job. Fantasists and liars don’t get to be network news anchors. Sorry not sorry.
Meanwhile, Page Six (an outlet with an extreme hate-on for all things NBC) has a massive insider-y story about how NBC has bungled this whole thing and Tom Brokaw is telling everyone that Williams must go. A source claims “Brokaw wants Williams’ head on a platter…He is making a lot of noise at NBC that a lesser journalist or producer would have been immediately fired or suspended for a false report.” That’s actually true. Sources also say Brokaw knew Williams’ story was a lie a long time ago and he was “extremely uncomfortable with it.” Another source claims that Williams isn’t even well-liked among NBC News staffers. The source claims Williams is “a real pompous piece of sh-t” and “an a—hole… He’s not a journalist. He’s a reader.”
Thus far, Williams is not being suspended or reprimanded in any way and NBC staffers are in a “panic” according to Page Six. You know what? If people keep Truth Squading Williams’ public statements, I’m sure they’ll find something else. And then he’ll be out.
Update: NBC News says that Williams is now under investigation. It sounds like it’s an internal, in-house NBC News investigation. Also, the people who were originally involved in the 2003 Chinook incident in Iraq have some weirdly contradicting memories – Politico tries to sum up the situation here.
Photos courtesy of WENN, Getty.
Can he take his daughter with him when he leaves?
Seriously. He’s been lying for years by telling us she has talent.
And Nancy Snyderman.
Don’t forget glib Matt Lauer.
Please, please take her with you.
No joke.
Yes!!!
I must’ve missed something…did Allison Williams do something wrong? She’s not my favorite on ‘Girls’ but, she’s not out stirring up unnecessary media attention like Lena Dunham is.
So, I’m confused about the animosity towards her.
People don’t like nepotism. The girl is as bland as dry toast; no way she’d be so successful without her dad’s name opening doors.
Agree with all the above – I didn’t even realize she was his daughter; and sugar said no-one likes nepotism, and it is disingenuous to deny the obvious.
and the scene of her getting her ass eaten turned more then a few off her
and lest we all forget that Brian Williams himself has benefitted from nepotism. His wife’s (a Jane Gillian Stoddard) father was the VP of marketing for WNET in New York. He didn’t finish college and while he had worked in TV news, etc…, don’t think that his wife’s connections didn’t help push him along!
I’m not sure it’s completely nepotism. She was a senior during my freshman year at Yale and from my experiences watching her improv troupe, she was actually pretty good. I’m not sure what has happened to that spark/it factor she had while in school (Lena Dunham probably ate it. Not a weight joke, a soul sucking attention craving she-beast joke.). She has/had a modicum of talent.
OMG please!!!
Yes….please Fire him and take Allison with him.
Lol.
Yay for Tom Brokaw. I hope they do fire Williams’ sorry a$$.
Yes but I’m wondering if he’s known the truth for a while, why didn’t he speak up sooner? That’s a bit hypocritical, imo.
From what I read on another site yesterday, Brokaw did speak up at NBC and to Williams directly. Then, Williams repeated the lie again in a Brokaw interview last year and he again said something. Brokaw is a company guy, I think, but he also takes the military very seriously. What surprises me is that all these things have apparently gone without challenge. The French Quarter flooding? Why did no one challenge that at the time? And if there was a cop who rescued him that he is friends with “to this day,” where is the cop and why isn’t he supporting the story? Its a feeding frenzy now. My guess is Williams will be quickly “reassigned” to Dateline or something.
Pants on fire. Being a journalist, his credibility is everything. I don’t see how they can keep him.
Sarah, that’s what I want to know–about the French Quarter flooding. I’ve never heard him say it (don’t watch him, don’t like him). But being a New Orleans’ native, I could have easily picked that lie out immediately! I thought it was well-known the French Quarter didn’t flood?
Not defending BW, but wondering why Brokaw is on the warpath. He has been in hot water too.
“Tom Brokaw admitted that his Nightly News program of January 4 had misrepresented film clips shown to buttress its contention that fish were being killed by pollution from logging operations in the Clearwater National Forest in Idaho. He also acknowledged that other film clips purporting to show the effects of clearcutting in the Clearwater may also have been misrepresented.”
“On November 17, 1992, Dateline NBC aired an hour-long investigative report titled “Waiting to Explode,” which focused on allegations that General Motors’ Rounded-Line Chevrolet C/K-Series pickup trucks exploded upon impact when involved in collisions due to the poor design of the vehicle model’s fuel tanks. Dateline ’s footage showed a sample of a low-speed accident in which the fuel tank exploded; the explosion during the crash test would later be discovered to have been rigged by producers with the program, who placed remotely controlled model rocket engines inside the truck’s fuel tank to initiate the blast. The program did not disclose the fact that the accident was staged.”
Williams breached the public’s trust, so yeah. This is journalism. Would you believe anything he said from now on? Nope; send him packing.
I don’t disagree, he flat out lied, there was no “mis-remembering”, he wasn’t expecting to be called out on it. Most every other job, you do something like that and you’re fired on the spot.
Hi blue marie! 🌊 👋
Hey Kiddo, Happy Friday!!
Indeed. Yes, he should be fired.
There certainly isn’t any “mis-remembering” when it comes to being shot down. I’m sure any war veteran will agree. He lied, he got caught now he should face the consequences.
I don’t like Williams, but the pile-ons tend to make me squeamish. I don’t know why.
Anyway…#lockjawversusoldlockjaw, as someone mentioned yesterday.
I hear you. People really do get a lot of joy in taking people down.
The man makes $14 million a year to effectively “read” the news. At least in Britian they simply call them “news readers”. Calling peole like Katie Couric, Brian Williams, and Matt Lauer “journalists” is a slap in the face to the Walter Cronkites and Peter Jennings of the world.
So many people ouf of work through no fault of their own and these men and women have turned a nobel profession into “reality TV”; with very little reality!
So, yeah people do like the “take down”. But more so, people want to know why these guys never get fired for such blatant lies when if any of us on this board were as disingenuous in our own workplaces, we would all be fired!
I’m not disagreeing that Williams should lose his job. But I’m not taking to the internet with my outrage and inciting others, I’m only commenting on the story in this discussion. I was just agreeing that the feeding frenzy that tends to happen online when something like this happens is a little frightening.
Funny about lockjaw.
I agree he should be fired, but I know what you mean about pile ons. Ganging up on people, mob mentality and all that – one of the least attractive qualities of human nature.
I agree. The real lie is horrible and should be facing it. But now let’s run out and report every unsubstantiated story about him and call him a liar and with tons of falsehoods.
Page Six has published stories before that aren’t true. And let me put it this way. I ate a meal the other night with four people. I was in the bathroom all night (TMI I know), and not one other person was. But that’s how I react to certain things. If I ingested nasty flood water, I could see it happening to me. My dogs can eat anything and have stomachs of steel. I don’t get comparing dogs like he some liar.
You both said it perfectly about pile ons and ganging up on people. I hate the mob mentality also and all glee and joy in repeating many stories that are completely unsubstantiated and thrown out on the internet and passed around as fact. If there are other substantiated stories, not innuendo, then I’m all for calling him out.
I think he should be gone or suspended based on the war story alone. It was a flat out lie, not embellishment. I don’t even watch him on the news, was never a fan of him as the anchor of nightly news, so my views aren’t because I’m a fan.
Agreed. I do think someone decided that they wanted him out and this is how it’s happening. It only takes one thing and social media will do the rest.
That being said, I always thought his attention-seeking ways with celebrities were a bit much. You certainly never saw people like Diane Sawyer, Brokaw or Jennings acting like he did. That’s why Katie Couric didn’t last long.
Agree about the dysentery. I looked it up and it’s just bloody poop from any infection, not a specific bacteria. It’s plausible. But seeing bodies floating in a dry area isn’t.
I was washing dishes watching the news when he said he remembered being in a different helicopter and it was in his calm news anchor voice, and it was kind of surreal. Did he just say that??
I agree. He is very attention-seeking by being on all these entertainment shows, a try-hard celeb wannabe. And you’re right that no other credible, high-profile ‘journalist’ has been as camera-time hungry as this guy. I’ve always thought there was something wrong with him being on all these entertainment shows because it just looks like he’d do anything for fame.
The pile-on is very uncomfortable.
I don’t see how he can survive as anchor of the Nightly News at this point. All credibility is gone. But then, NBC News seems massively dysfunctional so who knows. He should be gone however.
That’s probably because you’re a nice person. It really isn’t our best quality. However, when it comes to people with jobs like his, I don’t feel sorry for them. If it’s true that his relationship with the truth is somewhat strained, he should be fired and not just because he lied but also because he’s a giant idiot. Especially if it wasn’t a one-time thing. His credibility is really all he has. If you take that away you might as well put Kermit up there. …. Which, let’s face it, wouldn’t be the craziest thing on TV or even on a “news” program (I’m using that term loosely).
+1.
Why are people defending this guy? Like Cosby, he was called out and out and out and then finally, for some mystical reason, the naysayers gained traction and the tides turned on him for good. Of course there’s going to be a review of everything he’s ever said on air in his entire lifetime- as there should be. He got caught telling a vainglorious and utterly tacky lie, and that is inexcusable. Now he’s saying he saw dead bodies floating past his window but it wasn’t factually possible? He’s two steps away from marching in a Veteran’s Day parade with that Purple Heart of his that he fished out of a box of cereal.
Who defended him?
Surely you’re not comparing a serial rapist to a dishonest news anchor?
Kitten, this type of thing makes me uncomfortable.
I agree. People get so rabid about stuff. He apologized and is publicly humiliated. Let’s all calm down.
On that end of things, his apology was delivered on Friday, as to not make big news. That’s a typical tactic used by politicians. At any rate, this should be more about NBC than Williams. If he has been discovered in a lie then there is no point in dredging up more and more. It’s now about the standards at NBC, and what they consider as a threshold of journalistic integrity. If Brokaw ‘knew’ about a lie, then NBC ‘knew’ about a lie, and so on. So what Talie said above is probably true, there was some other action that contributed to suddenly making this into a watershed moment.
It should be about both NBC and Williams. To excuse Williams is to act as if he isn’t a grown man and it’s just all about the parenting and not dear sweet Brian. He did it, now he gets to be held accountable for it.
Why are you saying people are excusing him? You clearly have mistaken my point. I just feel very uncomfortable when these things reach critical mass and there is almost a hysteria about it. Yes, he lied and he should resign or be fired. But the pitchforks and torches mob-thing is excruciating to see.
Because now people wonder about what else he has made up. This guy narrates news to the country. What else and who else has he lied about/for? NBC = Faux News
FlowerintheAttic, here was the question I posed: Why are you saying people are excusing him? There was not one person in this particular thread who ‘excused’ what Williams did.
and nowhere did I say people are excusing him, I responded to Beth. Its my opinion that people are rightly pissed off at his actions. Tough sh*t he’s humiliated, that’s on him for constantly repeating and flapping his lips about this made up situation. He deserves to be piled on on this one. He deserves to be piled on for the Katrina stories if they too prove to be only in his head. Hillary should have been piled on for her ridiculous comments about being shot at in Bosnia.
Kiddo: It was weareallmadeofstars who mentioned people are defending him.
If he lied about one major thing, then it may be likely that he lied about other major things. In this day of EASIER access to news and information via the internet, it’s easier to check to see if his other major stories were based on lies or not.
It’s nature to be curious. It’s nature to want to know more.
There would be no “pile-ons” if BW would just put on his big boy underwear and just fess up and clear up any of his major mis-remembered stories. The “pile-ons” only exist because of BW’s reluctance to come clean and because his ego and desire for fame is more important to him than his credibility.
In short, everything that happens now is on BW, not on the public’s curious nature.
Another thing, people don’t like to be lied to, especially in a situation in which they give their trust to the persons from whom they expect the truth. What’s the point of getting your information from a ‘journalist’ who would readily lie to you just to inflate his ego? A trust was broken here.
He has also shown that he doesn’t respect the public. It’s an insult to his viewers and through his actions, he’s shown that he doesn’t care.
excellent response
@FlowerintheAttic – Thank you. 🙂
People like scapegoats to pretend these problems are not systemic, but instead just “one bad apple.”
Every journalist was in on the lie about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which led to an illegal and immoral war killing hundreds of thousands of civilians, but we’d rather just focus on one guy whose lie has personal rather than broader societal/political ramifications.
I agree with Brokaw that Williams should be fired, but then again, I also think Brokaw is one to talk, as are any of those faux-journalist broadcasters ….
Judith Miller led that charge. Alternet or The Raw story, maybe someone else, I forget who, but it was a small organization, was the only source swimming against the tide on that issue. The problem there is that if one journalist from a major paper reports something, all the newscasters report on what the report was, very often without question, or without context.
But you are right, it is systemic. But it’s not just lies, it’s absence of stories altogether. There are things that papers/news outlets decide not to report on at all.
Bingo. The story that Kaiser posted from Stars and stripes mentioned that Brian Williams and his NBC team were in the second chinook. Apparently all of the NBC team are liars as well.
Agreed. Mob mentality is something that really scares me because it’s an indication of how sheep-like people can be.
Wow, those Katrina stories are really bad. He sounds like the compulsive liar character that Jon Lovitz played on SNL years back.
And it’s so true that if this had been anyone lower on the food chain at NBC they’d already be gone. Will be interesting to see what happens.
Yup, he’s gotta go.
He should be fired. His job is to tell us what is going on in the world, and if you can’t believe a word he says, what use is he?
Of course, when Hillary “misspoke” about running through gunfire, nobody seemed to care.
The American public expects politicians to lie but reporters, not so much. People should be asking if he’s lied about the news. If people dig around and find the answer is yes, NBC should let him go immediately. If they don’t, his personal credibility will suffer and his numbers will fall for a while but he’ll probably be able to keep his job. I’m waiting until more information comes out before condemning him.
See, I don’t understand that mentality at all. Maybe because I was brought up that one of the worst things you can be is a liar. I expect everyone to tell the truth if they can, or keep silent. Politicians, newscasters, my coworkers, my husband – I just can’t stand people who lie. I think it shows a complete lack of character, especially the kinds of lies that are just made up stories to make you look good, or to deflect blame onto someone else. Everybody, including me, tells “no, that dress looks great” kind of lies. But our society has just come to accept lying as par for the course. I don’t get it.
+1 GNAT
This dude is like Tropic Thunder, journalism style. First of all, he is lying about the news by inserting fake narratives into important and serious world events. Secondly, he clearly has a pathological need to feel that he is a valiant and important man at the center of the action, and letting him keep his day job is just a) providing him with ongoing opportunity to be a fabulist, and b) asking for more trouble. It’s like letting an alcoholic be a bartender.
Yes, I would definitely be in Candor, even though it makes me wildly unpopular. **chuckles a bit**
He deserves to be fired, not resign, but just plain fired.
GoodNames, I agree with you about abhorring liars. I personally haven’t come to expect it, not even of politicians, maybe I’m naive. I do think politics does attract a disproportionate share of people who have no qualms about lying and doing other underhanded things because they crave power and the spotlight. But that’s certainly not a reason to consider lying acceptable. And I do believe there are people with integrity in politics and in journalism, just quietly doing their work.
Idont think anyone is saying that lying is “acceptable.” Just that when it comes to politicians, it’s not at all surprising.
GNAT totally with you on lying!!! Always go with the truth.
The other problem is RAMPANT cheating – “everybody is doing it, if I don’t cheat too I’ll fall behind.” Behind what? A test or job or prize you actually are not qualified to get? Does anybody actually know anything?
He should be fired, but Page Six and the NY Post have an agenda, to put it mildly.
I wonder who would replace him?
Rachel Maddow FTW.
Lester Holt.
You’re right. Lester Holt.
Is your news just about the presenters, then, guys? They just sit at a desk and read out stuff here. They’d never make any personal statements. Even the hard-nosed interviewers on the in-depth news shows would never relate any personal anecdotes.
He went on other shows to tell this story; ie David Letterman. Most of the “news” here is opinion based: CNN, FOX and MSNBC, especially. But the time slot that Williams is in was traditionally straight news read from a prompter.
Your news is much better in delivery, and it covers the world, with some other perspectives. Our newscasts are, by and large, very US- interest-centric.
Ah. Gotcha. I guess it would be rare for one of our newscasters to go on a talk show.
Oh, we get plenty of bias accusations for TV news, despite the “balance” rules. Half the population thinks the BBC is leftie-biased, the other half thinks it is a mouthpiece of establishment propaganda. Same news, so go figure.
Having said that, I gotsta say I prefer a sober style. I try and watch newscasts from a variety of countries, just to get everyone’s perspectives and better understand the relevant cultural biases (which I think are unavoidable) but I do find US news hard to watch. It’s just so shout-y.
@Sixer and @Kiddo – Canada’s like that too – we have news reports, then segments that are actual panel discussion segments, but the two don’t mix. News is news, opinion and debate is opinion and debate.
In the US, the anchors are very much intertwined with the narrative of the story and bring their personality to the programming. I couldn’t tell you much about many of our anchors, outside of their previous reporting posts. For news, I watch BBC and some Canadian programs, for analysis and debauchery, I watch MSNBC and whoever else has an interesting topic.
PBS is completely respectable and most educated Americans will find the real story there.
his ‘misremebering’ happens the most when he’s trying on his ‘journalistic big boy panties’ out in the field, not necessarily when he’s reading along with a teleprompter. What a tw*t.
I believe BW should be fired. There is no excuse for what he how did and many times he repeated this lie or allowed others to repeat this lie. He never came forward to set the record straight with the truth. This morning GMA did a collage of the many times this story was repeated in many forms and it was bad. Btw, that was no apology he made. I stopped watching NBC since the Ann Curry mess, now I’ll never believe anything on that news channel.
His daughter! Oh Lord, yes, take her with you while you are at it Brian W, please.
Just heard on CNN that when Brian Williams was in New Orleans on Katrina reporting, he said that from a hotel window in French Quarter he looking at a body floating face down and he felt like as if he is in Banda Ache when Tsunami hit it. Fact was French Quarter is at higher ground level, so there wasn’t much flooding there or no flooding at all! I think he embellishing the facts so he can look good! Should be fired for being dishonest reporter.
I can’t see how he could continue to report, even if they keep him. That’s the issue here. He’s lost the trust of the public. Everything he says now is suspect. Walter Cronkite was so beloved precisely because the public perceived him as worthy of their trust and that you could believe Walter when he spoke.
Reporters have been fired for less. Dan Rather was forced out of CBS when he reported on a story that looked true on its face but fell apart when you tried to verify it. That wasn’t technically lying (just bad journalism) and he had to leave because his credibility was damaged beyond repair. Williams gets caught actively LYING and he’s still around? Is CBS just more ethical than NBC – maybe. But if they want to have any scrap of credibility left, Williams needs to go.
Absolutely not more ethical. If you ever watch 60 Minutes, you will find it has turned into propaganda puff pieces. No one asks tough questions any longer. Their programs on torture and the FBI head were an abomination.
And Lara Logan was allowed to stay.
Actually, Dan Rather’s story was confirmed to be true, Much like Gary Webb (see Kill the Messenger) , Rather was vilified for pointing out a politically uncomfortable truth that was supposed to remain unspoken.
http://mediamatters.org/research/2007/09/25/dan-rather-is-right/139928
Journalism in America has certain parameters beyond which reporters should not tread and if they dare – whether accurate or not – they will be punished.
But wasn’t that beside the point? Even if it turns out to be true, Rather and his team did not do the basic diligence that journalism requires. If it is true, that simply means Rather got lucky in the end. However, the team still failed to address issues of authenticity and credibility. So I’m not sure exactly what point you’re trying to make.
The distinction is that Rather was sloppy but not intentionally bringing forth any false information, while Williams intentionally propagated a lie, and you made note of that in your first comment. I’m not sure if Williams’ intent was to promote any political idea, or to promote only himself.
Yes, as Kiddo stated, my point was only that the Rather controversy is not analogous to the Williams one. Rather should have been able to clarify the small errors in his reporting while maintaining that the overall crux of his story was absolutely true. His firing was political and not based on journalistic integrity, as we have been made to believe. Rather and his team were a bit sloppy with their sources, but in the end, had the story right. That did not matter because the narrative was contrary to what is allowable, so he was let go.
Williams did out and out lie – numerous times, it seems. The pattern of his behavior and his smugness and superficial charm would seem to indicate a psychological pathology – narcisssm or sociopathy/psychopathy, perhaps. Regardless, his behavior undermines his integrity and undermines his future reporting, but this incident is very different that the Rather scenario.
With all due respect, media matters is a George Soros funded website and organization specifically designed to discredit and embellish any other viewpoint than the progressive one. They’re pretty transparent in their agenda and shouldn’t really be quoted as a credible news source. It’s like the most biased, one sided, bitter agenda within the media. And that’s saying a lot.
Maybe NBC should do a massive shake up of their news department and also the Today show?
Oh, he is so gone. Just pray he doesn’t get a role on “Girls”. I can see that fool Dunham pulling some shit like that.
Man, I’ve always liked Williams. Well, he can have a career in Fox News.
ffs
You know that a woman in his position would have been fired already!
Exactly. I always felt uncomfortable with how he was lauded in the media because of that dynamic. I don’t think any female anchor could just make appearances on talk shows and do skits without getting shredded for losing their credibility (eventhough the skits are funny) .
Look at how Ann Curry has been treated when she is someone with the gravitas to be on the news.
The problem nbc is facing now is, if they keep him they ( and he ) will have no credibility. Everything out of his mouth will be challenged or suspect. I believe he is not an intellectual giant, is simply a prop and is a pathological liar. I think he is arrogant and way too impressed with himself. He simply has to go because nbc has had a credibility issue waaaay before this came out. If they keep him they’re basically admitting that they’re based in fraud and lies ( which we all know is true for most msm ) and its anything goes for ratings. Pretty bad.
He just signed a 5-yr contract. I wonder if that impacts how easy it is to fire him.
wouldn’t they just buy him out or give him a severance? that’s on NBC’s dumba$$ for knowingly re-hiring a guy who has been balls out lying for years
Thats interesting. I wonder how that impacts everything.
I wonder if that contract allows not only little white lies, but ones with flames.
Maybe Brian Williams and Dan Rather can start their own show and call it the “Misremembering and Non Fact Checking Report”. Put it on Comedy Central. Brian is full of “funny quips” and “rapid-fire humor”. Just not full of truth, apparently. Soups Synderman can host a “Diners and Drive-thrus with Excellent Soup” show on the Travel Channel.
Actually the Dan Rather story was no where near this. Dan Rather believed the bare bones of his story about Bush to be true (and still does) , rushed it on air without the proper checking , and because of the shakiness of one set of documents and the political climate was pushed off the air.
Brian Williams outright lied to self aggrandize, Rather was sloppy with a story. Huge huge difference.
Yup. (See #12 above)
I say YaY for the Truth Squad! To perpetuate this lie like he has for so long is ludicrous and now he’s sounding pathological. He SHOULD be called out on it. And the Katrina lies too! What a sick thing to embellish. Time for me to make the switch to international news. So over the networks.
He lied about other stories he covered?
SHOCKED! I am SHOCKED!!!
{clutches pearls}
This is not surprising, if he felt comfortable telling one lie, there were sure to be others. This wasn’t a private lie, this was a falsehood he repeated for public consumption. I don’t like pile-ons but if he has any integrity, he will resign. If not, NBC needs to fire him. No shifting him to another program, fire him.
As I understand it ,Brian Williams was told by the higher ups at NBC not to share story ,but did anyway. At the very least he should be suspended without pay.
Liar liar pants on fire. I am sure he will find another job.
NBC should send him on “Sabbatical for his delayed PTSD” and then he can resurface and get a job in 2016 as press secretary for whoever is in office then. Both sides can use a good liar like him up front- he has the pretty boy face for it too. lol
Totally press secretary material.
maybe he can help with all that transparency the current admin claims they’re showing. he’d be too perfect.
It’s NBC though……they’ll likely pull a Nancy Snyderman and keep him on the news and see how much people care over the next month. If it all dies down, I can’t see them firing Williams. I feel like he’s a golden boy to them, much like Lauer. Cockroaches that will go down with the ship……
How embarrassing to have a lie like that uncovered! And probably the french quarter hotel lie as well. No thoughts on whether he should be fired over this – he’s being roundly humiliated. I’ve enjoyed him on talk shows – he has a personality – so I can cut him a bit of slack as I’m sure he was embellishing to make a better story …. but how embarrassing. He was trying to insert himself into the news story and it blew up in his face better than the grenade that “took down” his choppe.r.
Okay, I work in public health and am a member of a federal disaster response team. I did not deploy for Katrina (because of a family emergency, I was out of state when my team was called up), but I know and work with dozens of people who were deployed for Hurricane Katrina.
A few facts:
1. The French Quarter was never flooded during Katrina and was open for business during the aftermath and cleanup. Many restaurant owners had generators and were able to keep their supplies frozen so there was an absolutely surreal scene going on – outside of the French Quarter was devastation, but inside the French Quarter people were eating at restaurants.
2. Federal government employees were banned from eating in the French Quarter because of the ‘optics’ of having people in emergency disaster response uniforms being seen eating a nice meal in the French Quarter – so everyone had to get bussed back to Baton Rouge at the end of the day to go back MREs (or a steam table meal if they were lucky).
3. The luxury hotels in the French Quarter were filled up with fancy journalists on expense accounts – these hotels were still running. They tripled their room rates and stayed open.
4. That comment about gangs overrunning five-star hotels is ludicrous. Hotels have security and they take it very seriously. If these hotels were able to supply electricity and food, why wouldn’t they be able to supply security as well?
5. The only thing in the Katrina floodwaters dangerous to people’s health was radiation from the nuclear medicine departments in the basements of all the hospitals being flooded, but even that wasn’t a high enough amount to be damaging. Being in a new place often gives people an upset tummy for a few days, but that it NOT the same as dysentery!
This guy sounds like a fantasist.
Very interesting. Thanks for commenting. Were there really bodies floating in the flood waters? I remember casualties in the Superdome, but I don’t remember hearing about floating bodies. (I went to school in Nola and love that city. My daughter was born on the 3rd of Sept., so I missed a lot of the news.)
In the book Zeitoun, which is one man’s story of events during Katrina and the aftermath, and he talked about seeing bodies floating as he navigated the city via canoe.
To be honest, I never asked – when my friends and coworkers came back from their Katrina deployments, I just asked them, “How was it?” and then let them vent, sometimes for a long time! They talked a lot about their frustration at the chaos and disorganization on the ground, how poor the communication was in terms of what other agencies were doing, and at how much time was lost every day because of the political decision to not let federal disaster response employees eat in the French Quarter.
My understanding is that there were many people’s bodies floating in the floodwaters and also just laying on the ground in New Orleans for the first few days after Katrina made landfall.
From a disaster response point of view, the major concern about having dead bodies floating or lying around is the damage to people’s mental health. (It is extremely upsetting to see dead bodies lying around, particularly if you are already traumatized.) If an otherwise healthy person dies from blunt force trauma or drowning, however, then their body is not going to be an infectious disease threat.
A lot of attention is paid to collecting and identifying bodies after a disaster because of the need to respect human dignity and prevent further emotional trauma among the survivors, but in terms of infectious disease it’s not a priority at all (even Haiti, where hundreds of thousands of animal carcasses were simply allowed to rot after the earthquake because priority was given to finding and identifying human remains, wasn’t having major problems with infectious diseases until the Nepalese UN soldiers introduced cholera into the refugee camps).
He should be fired. I don’t know if they will fire him though, that is how NBC is.
I had a political science professor in college who was just like BW. He taught a class about crises in world politics and claimed to be not only present in each part of the world where the crisis was happening but also in the thick of it. He was in the room when JFK was sorting out the Cuban Missile Crisis, etc.
He was such a self-important narcissist he actually seemed to believe his fantasies as we students were all smirking and eye rolling.
YES. Fire him. His credibility is gone anyway.
I’m a veteran. I’m not going to bash anybody who isn’t, and I don’t expect people to “thank” me. I am not a hero, though I have known some. All of that is in aid of saying that I’m not just going to take a shot at the guy hiding behind a flag and some “hero” status. That said, it stinks when people make these kind of stories up. Anybody who’s ever been under fire knows that it’s a matter of sheer terror. You’re always glad when it’s over and you’re still in one piece. Sure, you might tell the story over the years, but frankly, not all that often because they aren’t particularly pleasant memories.
I can understand why people want to make these stories up, I think, anyway. I think some people feel that will make the fear they might have felt seem more acceptable to other people. For example, lots of folks serve in combat areas but never actually experience a firefight, or come under direct fire of any kind. But people like that still experience plenty of anxiety and fear for all sorts of reasons. Their service isn’t any less important because they didn’t fire a weapon in the heat of some battle. Everyone in the service knows that they might have to at some point, and it sometimes simply boils down to chance.
So maybe he was trying to tell people the story in aid of expressing how dangerous his job was as a correspondent. I don’t know. But it’s not okay all the same. Just my two cents.
How soon before we see the return of David Gregory?
Why do i keep thinking of Forrest Gump while reading this?….
the guy would be fired immediately if he worked for a reputable company so it will depend on whether nbc is reputable or not. Im from th uk so I have no idea about that.
Maybe he can ‘star’ on Girls, slow-rap the news & watch his daughter get her booty chewed on. So nasty. He/She both said they watched the episode together. Weird.
Yeah, they also watched the episode where she masturbates in a public bathroom. I’m not really sure its actually necessary for them to divulge that kind of info because it only sounds creepy as hell.
I met Brian once and he came off as a really nice guy. I like the fact that he was a volunteer fireman and is a solid family man. I am really not sure why he lied and I just can’t rationalize it. I think he needs to voluntary leave as a small step towards regaining credibility but sadly his career may just be over.
That we’re even discussing whether or not he should be fired is evidence of the sorry state of corporate ethics. This so-called news outlet is not actually a news outlet. This is GE. A corporation. They are not in the news business. Never have been. Never will be. They are in business to make money. This is the result of deregulation. News people were run off when formerly-strict FCC regulations were scrapped during the Reagan administration. Corporations were then free to buy up radio and tv stations and newspapers. And they did it to make money, not to bring us the news or to balance the power of government or to get to the truth. I know because I was one the journalists that couldn’t make the shift to fabricated, entertainment “reporting.” It never occurred to me to just make shit up. But I saw plenty of it. Because this has been happening since Reagan deregulated corporate ownership of news outlets. Some things should be regulated because sometimes you have to make people do the right thing. And corporations have a single vision: make more money.
I definitely think Brian Williams deserves to be fired, but I guess I would be satisfied with suspension and having him demoted. If CBS can suspend and almost fire Lara Logan for her story on that guy who made all of those false claims about Benghazi, as if she is personally responsible for someone else being a liar, then Brian Williams deserves to be fired or at the very least suspended and demoted for lying about his own personal experiences and offering the most insincere and pathetic half-assed apology when he finally came clean. Williams’ credibility will never recover from this. Who can ever believe a word he says again?
Ah yes. Stealing valor is very bad because we hold our troops in the highest esteem. That’s why so many veterans are living on the streets.