Brian Williams' 'fog of memory'

[bapo!]

I love when the media begins to eat itself, and this Brian Williams story is a real doozy.

He's been anchoring NBC Nightly News for a decade. He's pretty much an institution at this point. Kind of hard to imagine him resigning over this. But this story has momentum. Everything, even his Katrina coverage, is being second-guessed now.

The right-wing media is a little more gleeful about it, but this isn't a left/right debate. Everybody exaggerates in the retelling of stories, but there's really no way to spin this. You were either shot out of the sky, or you weren't. It's kind of hard to misremember something like that.

[brian]

The right-wing media is a little more gleeful about it, but this isn't a left/right debate.

Duh, of course it is. Every member of the mainstream media is a liberal, pinko commie. Every. Single. One.

[The Sybian]

You know, it sounded horrible and inexcusable at first, but I read that the pilot of the helicopter came out and defended Williams. The pilot said that their helicopter was hit by enemy fire, but it was another of the 4 helicopters they were with that was shot down. The other helicopters all landed and waited with the downed helicopter. If this is true, that is a pretty minor mistake. It is conceivable that a civillian, in that kind of stressful situation, could misinterpret the situation and think the fire his helicopter took knocked it out of commission.

When I first saw the article posted on Right Wing blogs, they made it out that Williams intentionally misreported facts that skewed the entire reporting on the invasion of Iraq. At worst, it was an intentional exaggeration to make his story more interesting and be a better guest on Letterman. This is still upsetting and problematic, as it calls his integrity into question.

Did Williams report this on the news, or is it just the Letterman appearance. I don't have a problem with a celebrity enhancing a story for entertainment value during a talk show interview, and I presume it happens all the time. It is different coming from a reporter or news anchor, because their integrity is everything. If he doesn't lose his job, I think there is an outcry from the Right, and we hear this as a defense for Fox News lies for the next 10 years.

[Joe K]

The right-wing media is a little more gleeful about it, but this isn't a left/right debate.

Duh, of course it is. Every member of the mainstream media is a liberal, pinko commie. Every. Single. One.

I'm pretty sure Brian Williams is actually pretty right wing himself. I know he's expressed admiration for Limbaugh in the past.

[brian]

Yeah, hence my joke. The media is a cross-section of America itself. The myth of the liberal media was created by Nixon's paranoia and taken as gospel by conservatives for two generations since.

[mister d]

Left or right, he really should be fired for this.

[Shirley]

I haven't read any articles about this, only brief summaries, so it's possible I'm missing a key point, but ... people misremember shit like this all of the time. Our brains suck.

When I was in college, one year my dad picked me up to drive home for Thanksgiving (or maybe Christmas) break. He had picked up my sister first (she from Colorado, me from St. Louis). On our way to Virginia, we drove through Louisville late at night. From the elevated interstate, we could see a building on fire. It was a pretty good sized blaze and it didn't appear to have any fire trucks there yet.

Years later, my mom recounted the story as if she had been in the car and seen the fire. My dad, sis and I tried to correct her, but she got upset, so we just dropped it. My mom wasn't senile (yet). She had just heard the story and visualized it in her head such that after a few years, it was indistinguishable from a real memory.

My wife and I have similar arguments every now and then about whether long past events involved both of us or if one or the other had just heard the story enough times to now believe he/she was involved.

Again, memory is a funny thing.

[mister d]

Its being in a helicopter that gets shot to the ground. From a person whose career benefits from that sort of first hand tale. Even Rush would be skeptical about this one.

[Pruitt]

Left or right, he really should be fired for this.

In a heartbeat.

[howard]

…Williams intentionally misreported facts that skewed the entire reporting on the invasion of Iraq.

Oh, this is the one time someone is held to account for skewing the entire reporting of the invasion of Iraq. That makes perfect sense.

The entire news media is a fucking joke. This clutching of pearls over Williams' integrity cracks me the fuck up. The news media has. no. integrity. None. But, it is fun to pretend.

[The Sybian]

I haven't read any articles about this, only brief summaries, so it's possible I'm missing a key point, but ... people misremember shit like this all of the time. Our brains suck.

When I was in college, one year my dad picked me up to drive home for Thanksgiving (or maybe Christmas) break. He had picked up my sister first (she from Colorado, me from St. Louis). On our way to Virginia, we drove through Louisville late at night. From the elevated interstate, we could see a building on fire. It was a pretty good sized blaze and it didn't appear to have any fire trucks there yet.

Years later, my mom recounted the story as if she had been in the car and seen the fire. My dad, sis and I tried to correct her, but she got upset, so we just dropped it. My mom wasn't senile (yet). She had just heard the story and visualized it in her head such that after a few years, it was indistinguishable from a real memory.

My wife and I have similar arguments every now and then about whether long past events involved both of us or if one or the other had just heard the story enough times to now believe he/she was involved.

Again, memory is a funny thing.

While that is certainly true, Williams told the story on Letterman in 2003. I've never heard Williams say anything showing a political bias, but I would be surprised if he was a Conservative. He has a great sense of humor. BTW, anyone catch his daughter on The Daily Show? She was fucking hilarious, and gave Stewart shit. She was very quick with the jokes, and of course super hot.

I do find it a bit bizarre that the Right is pushing this as proof of the Liberal Media's lies. Again, Williams has not shown a political ideology either way, and the lie or inaccuracy was in no way pushing an agenda, just making his story on Letterman more interesting. Either way, he sat in a helicopter on the ground behind enemy lines in a sand storm for a long time with no cover. Does it really matter if his helicopter was merely hit with enemy fire and landed vs being the helicopter that was disabled?

[Rush2112]

Why they be hatin' on the rap game?

[Shirley]

Convenient timing for this article.

http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria- ... collection" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Johnnie]

I guess when you watch your daughter get her ass eaten on an overrated TV show, you'll acquire PTSD by proxy and misremember everything.

[Pruitt]

I guess when you watch your daughter get her ass eaten on an overrated TV show, you'll acquire PTSD by proxy and misremember everything.

You sir have a future in PR.

[bapo!]

I guess when you watch your daughter get her ass eaten on an overrated TV show, you'll acquire PTSD by proxy and misremember everything.

That was definitely my favorite scene in 'Peter Pan.'

You are talking about 'Peter Pan,' right? I hope I'm not conflating my memory of that show with 'Girls.'

[Johnnie]

I guess when you watch your daughter get her ass eaten on an overrated TV show, you'll acquire PTSD by proxy and misremember everything.

That was definitely my favorite scene in 'Peter Pan.'

You are talking about 'Peter Pan,' right? I hope I'm not conflating my memory of that show with 'Girls.'

I'm not sure either. They both seem to take place in her Never Never Land.

[cerrano]

I guess when you watch your daughter get her ass eaten on an overrated TV show, you'll acquire PTSD by proxy and misremember everything.

That was definitely my favorite scene in 'Peter Pan.'

you should have stopped here. gold star-worthy

[bapo!]

So, first he suspended himself (or was told to kinda/sorta get out of the way) for 'several days.' Now he's been officially been suspended for six months without pay. Wow. Does anybody think we're actually going to see him on-camera in six months?

[DaveInSeattle]

So, first he suspended himself (or was told to kinda/sorta get out of the way) for 'several days.' Now he's been officially been suspended for six months without pay. Wow. Does anybody think we're actually going to see him on-camera in six months?

Nope...he's done. This is the way to ease him out....

[howard]

So, maybe Hillary will be done too, since she had a similar incident (claiming to be under live fire in a war zone, but it didn't happen.) Oh, wait; the job she is seeking requires much less credibility than the job of a hairdo reading a teleprompter on an entertainment show. I forgot.

[Rex]

while we're at it we may as well repeal the entire LBJ presidency, right?

[Pruitt]

I very rarely watched US Network News, but admired Brian Williams greatly after reading The Great Deluge - an absolutely fantastic book about Katrina and the aftermath. In the book, Williams came across as being decent, heroic yet mostly ego free.

Uh oh... http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morn ... ager-says/

Guess the stereotype of TV Newsmen as preening, self-aggrandizing blowhards is just as accurate as we thought.

[Brontoburglar]

I very rarely watched US Network News, but admired Brian Williams greatly after reading The Great Deluge - an absolutely fantastic book about Katrina and the aftermath. In the book, Williams came across as being decent, heroic yet mostly ego free.

Uh oh... http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morn ... ager-says/

Guess the stereotype of TV Newsmen as preening, self-aggrandizing blowhards is just as accurate as we thought.

Yeah, I think we can put as much credibility into the hotel manager's account than we can into Brian Williams' at this point. And anyway, we're immediately going to denounce a guy (who admittedly has embellished another story) with someone who says he "maybe misremembered?"

[The Sybian]

My favorite article discrediting Williams was about his story about being mugged at gunpoint in Red Bank, NJ in the 1970s. Hood* posted it on FB. The entire article hinged on some restaurant or store owner saying "those things didn't happen in Red Bank then," and he didn't remember hearing about that incident. He didn't claim to know Williams, and the police said they don't have records of filed police reports from that far back. Seriously? One guy saying crimes like that didn't happen in his town 40 years ago is enough to write an article disproving Williams' story? Well, he can back it up with his statement that he doesn't remember hearing about a teenage boy he didn't know getting robbed 40 years ago. Rock.Solid.

ETA: Bill O'Reilly came out defending Williams, so I am clearly wrong. Not that I am completely defending Williams, but I think the media outrage and FoxNewsies freaking out over this while defending Fox's countless intentional reporting of already debunked stories without apologizing or acknowledging. Or hosting Tea Party rallies in the very early days of the Tea Party gaining popularity as a nutjob faction. Fox News made the Tea Party. Oh, then they spliced all crowd shots showing crowds from a different event so they could lie about the number of attendees. No idea why that popped into my head versus the hundreds of other lies, like reporting for days that the second largest city in England is 100% Muslim, non-Muslims and police are too afraid to enter, and it is completely under Sharia law. But at least they didn't embellish a personal story on a Letterman appearance.

[bapo!]

'A months-long internal investigation of Brian Williams by NBC News has turned up 11 instances in which the anchorman publicly embellished details of his reporting exploits, according to a person familiar with details of the probe.'

This isn't going to end well.

Last week, I caught up on some articles that I had Pocketed, and I finally read the New York Magazine piece that came out in the wake of the Williams scandal. It's not just about Williams; it's about the mess that is the entire NBC News division. Some interesting stuff in there. These kinds of articles are irresistible to me.

That article is a nice companion piece to the Washingtonian article about David Gregory's departure from 'Meet the Press.' It came out in December, before the Williams fiasco, but it's still relevant and worth reading. Not surprisingly, Comcast is painted as a meddling villain.

[Nonlinear FC]

'A months-long internal investigation of Brian Williams by NBC News has turned up 11 instances in which the anchorman publicly embellished details of his reporting exploits, according to a person familiar with details of the probe.'

This isn't going to end well.

Last week, I caught up on some articles that I had Pocketed, and I finally read the New York Magazine piece that came out in the wake of the Williams scandal. It's not just about Williams; it's about the mess that is the entire NBC News division. Some interesting stuff in there. These kinds of articles are irresistible to me.

That article is a nice companion piece to the Washingtonian article about David Gregory's departure from 'Meet the Press.' It came out in December, before the Williams fiasco, but it's still relevant and worth reading. Not surprisingly, Comcast is painted as a meddling villain.

Yeah, he's done. I'm sure you took note that this story was leaked to two other outlets on Friday. That's a pretty clear indication this was orchestrated, and it's hard to see any other motive other than Comcast/NBC pressuring Williams to just walk away. They have dangled the Tahir Square as a warning, with 11 other incidents hanging out there as leverage.

[rass]

/crosspost to Rio thread