PDA

View Full Version : Brian Williams



Dave Zellers
02-10-2015, 9:22 PM
NBC just slow fired Brian Williams.

Bruce Page
02-10-2015, 9:28 PM
Trial by Twitter

Rich Riddle
02-10-2015, 9:31 PM
NBC just slow fired Brian Williams.

Exactly what I thought. He took a suspension from which he will never return. All journalist lie, but he fabricated news that could be fact checked.

Dave Zellers
02-10-2015, 9:40 PM
All journalist lie, but he fabricated news that could be fact checked.
Fact checking is the key. I'm noticing that politicians are learning to keep their self aggrandizing lies to ones that can't be fact checked.

Out- fake war stories.

In- saving strangers from choking in local restaurants and then quietly disappearing during the aftermath.

Kent A Bathurst
02-10-2015, 9:42 PM
Well - if you are going to advertise yourself as "The Most Trusted Name in News [tm]", then you had better not be making up stuff in your on-air stories. I like the guy - I really like the guy - but he just skewered his career. Hoist on his own petard.

Chris Padilla
02-10-2015, 10:22 PM
I really didn't think what he lied about was any big deal but I guess it leads folks to wonder what else he might have lied about. I still think all ruckus about this was a bit over the top but whatever.

Mel Fulks
02-10-2015, 10:47 PM
Well, if "the most trusted name in news" can't lie, who can? They have been sappy, sentimental, and giving editorials as
news for years. Always had too many colors in their crayon box and never used "red" when " hot iridescent fiery red" was
handy. And getting involved with MSNBC didn't help either. Who drew the famous incidiary print of " the Boston Masacre"?
wasnt that Paul Revere? Brian is probably wondering why "Revere's made up truth was good and patriotic and mine isn't "

Dave Zellers
02-10-2015, 10:57 PM
I'm having a hard time drawing a line from Paul Revere to Brian Williams but for me the real problem is that we seem to pick and choose who to punish and who to let go for very similar transgressions.

The LAST thing justice is, is blind.

Mel Fulks
02-10-2015, 11:16 PM
Well,my point was Revere's propaganda was , and is considered good. I think news competition has made journalism more
accurate than it used to be. Whether he comes back will be based solely on whether there is a groundswell of support for
him.

Bill Clifton
02-10-2015, 11:25 PM
I don't understand the uproar in this case. I agree with one of the above replies - I think they all lie, stretch the truth, elevate the points in favor of the side they support, don't have time to present the other side, etc. I don't trust any of them - MSM, left wing groups, right wing groups and especially politicians.

What I do believe it that we are ruining a great country. Our kids and grandkids won't believe what we left them.

And oh yes - Kentucky won and I got 6 cabinet doors with the first coat of primer.

Tom Stenzel
02-10-2015, 11:36 PM
When I watch the news:

“Believe none of what you hear, and only half of what you see.” ― Benjamin Franklin (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/289513.Benjamin_Franklin)

Mel Fulks
02-10-2015, 11:40 PM
I respectfully suggest that the opinion that everyone in the news business lies is not a good thing to tell children. Frequently the smallest errors are corrected in broadcasts by the person who made them just days ago. Reporting standards are good , that is why a lie is big news.

Steve Rozmiarek
02-10-2015, 11:48 PM
I seriously was not aware he even existed until this. Guess it may be considered publicity in some wierd way...

John Gomes
02-10-2015, 11:51 PM
He gave himself a purple heart for another man's wound......He ain't no Walter Cronkite in the trust department!

Dave Zellers
02-10-2015, 11:52 PM
When I watch the news:

“Believe none of what you hear, and only half of what you see.”

― Benjamin Franklin (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/289513.Benjamin_Franklin)
I liked that a lot and so I clicked on your link and found this:

Tell me and I forget.
Teach me and I remember.
Involve me and I learn.
Benjamin Franklin (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/289513.Benjamin_Franklin)

Given that my wife is a teacher, thank you for that link. Awesome quote.

Rick Potter
02-11-2015, 1:54 AM
He must be a fisherman, prone to the occasional 'whopper'. I think he will be reinstated, though.

Reminds me of the time during the Japanese Tsunami, when I used a door to surf out on the remnants of the first swell, to help out some drowning fishermen whose boat was sucked out, only to be driven back in on the second swell, five miles inland, landing in a school yard just in time to save the children who were riding on the upside down school bell. We grabbed the kids and the bell, and pushed a busload of nuns farther up the hill to safety, before going back into town to get some fresh sushi which we cooked, well done, on the remnants of the town dock with a Korean hibachi that floated in. I left a large tip, even thought the fish was 'mushi mushi'.

Lee Reep
02-11-2015, 2:43 AM
I've always thought he was arrogant. Trying unsuccessfully to be an average Joe. Looks like his arrogance led him to believe he could fabricate a whopper and get away with it. Impossible to understand how he thought anyone in the military would let him get away with his tales, other than he's been blabbing about the helicopter incident quite a bit lately.

Dan Hintz
02-11-2015, 7:03 AM
I seriously was not aware he even existed until this. Guess it may be considered publicity in some wierd way...

Same here.

But to the point about "why does it matter"... if you can't trust what he's reporting on, how can you make an informed decision about world events? We all rely, to a major degree, on reporters telling us about happenings around the world. If they choose to embellish their own stories, who's to say they won't add some wild flourish to the next? People are now looking back at his older stories and finding some serious inconsistencies (shades of Stephen Glass anyone?)... I believe his reporting on New Orleans and hurricane Katrina being the most easily attacked. He claimed to see dead bodies floating by just outside his hotel window, but people are saying the flooding never came near his hotel as it's on one of the few naturally high ground spots in NO. Same thing with his claims that "gangs" were rampaging through / running the hotel.

Your job is a reporter of news, not a story maker. If you can't do your job, you shouldn't have it.

Charlie Velasquez
02-11-2015, 7:06 AM
Tell me and I forget.
Teach me and I remember.
Involve me and I learn.
Benjamin Franklin (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/289513.Benjamin_Franklin)

Given that my wife is a teacher, thank you for that link. Awesome quote. In my undergraduate days in education, early 70's, that was on a poster I had, almost..

Tell me, I forget; Show me, I remember; Involve me and I learn.
but paraphrased from some Chinese guy's writings from 2,000 years ago.

Verbiage doesn't have that Franklin ring to it. Despite it being on the Goodreads' web site, I would be surprised if it is one of his.

John Coloccia
02-11-2015, 7:25 AM
re: they all lie

That's nonsense. They may all have some bias. Even Cronkite had bias. They most certainly do not all lie. When your one job is to tell the truth, you'd better not lie.

Larry Frank
02-11-2015, 7:35 AM
Kind of sad when we expect reporters and politicians exaggerate or lie. There is no excuse for his behavior.

Larry Edgerton
02-11-2015, 7:49 AM
Who is Brian Williams?

Pat Barry
02-11-2015, 8:00 AM
1) All those Americans who don't know who Brian Williams is are full of it, live in a cave, only have a one dimensional perspective, or are pulling our legs. Any of these are possible.
2) Brian told his 'story' on Letterman show. I know, who is Letterman, right. The 'story' was told recently about something that happened years ago. To me this is really much ado about nothing
3) If my facts are wrong, please correct them
4) When there is blood in the water the sharks are sure to feed even if they don't know what apparently died.

Steve Rozmiarek
02-11-2015, 8:56 AM
1) All those Americans who don't know who Brian Williams is are full of it, live in a cave, only have a one dimensional perspective, or are pulling our legs. Any of these are possible.
2) Brian told his 'story' on Letterman show. I know, who is Letterman, right. The 'story' was told recently about something that happened years ago. To me this is really much ado about nothing
3) If my facts are wrong, please correct them
4) When there is blood in the water the sharks are sure to feed even if they don't know what apparently died.

I kid you not Pat. I don't get my news or much anything from television, which is I gather where Williams job was. As my job entails driving a lot, I listen to several radio news programs, but mostly read the news from the web when I have my morning coffee. I do this because it's more convenient and I can skip to the content I am interested in and get through half a dozen different outlets in half an hour or so.

FWWIW, I do know who Letterman is, but I thought he was retired, haven't watched him is 20 years or so.... Wow, he's had a long career.

John Coloccia
02-11-2015, 9:45 AM
I couldn't have told you exactly where Brian William's position was these days, anymore than I could name the ABC and CBS anchors. I don't think I've watched network news in 20 years, and I generally don't watch television at all. I didn't even have the TV hooked up to an antenna until my wife decided that she needed to be able to watch Mad Men and Downton Abbey. I hardly consider myself to be "living in a cave" just because I don't watch the boob tube.

roger wiegand
02-11-2015, 9:57 AM
While I knew that Brian Williams was a news person, I couldn't have told you what his job was or who he worked for. I don't think I live in a cave; I subscribe to the Wall Street Journal and the NY Times, listen extensively to NPR on my commute, and watch the BBC to get news every day, as well as various web-based news sites. TV network news however, has become a complete irrelevancy. It is so biased in service of its corporate masters that it long ago became completely unbelievable, sometimes blatantly as in Faux News, sometime better disguised.

David Cramer
02-11-2015, 10:34 AM
Same here.

But to the point about "why does it matter"... if you can't trust what he's reporting on, how can you make an informed decision about world events? We all rely, to a major degree, on reporters telling us about happenings around the world. If they choose to embellish their own stories, who's to say they won't add some wild flourish to the next? People are now looking back at his older stories and finding some serious inconsistencies (shades of Stephen Glass anyone?)... I believe his reporting on New Orleans and hurricane Katrina being the most easily attacked. He claimed to see dead bodies floating by just outside his hotel window, but people are saying the flooding never came near his hotel as it's on one of the few naturally high ground spots in NO. Same thing with his claims that "gangs" were rampaging through / running the hotel.

Your job is a reporter of news, not a story maker. If you can't do your job, you shouldn't have it.


Your post reminds me of the time I was visiting a family friend in Ft. Myers, Florida about 6 or 7 years ago.

My friend brought us by the main pier in downtown Ft. Myers. As we were walking out to the pier, he brought up the "fact?" that a few weeks earlier one of the guys fishing on the end of the pier had caught a shark and it pulled him over the side since he wouldn't let go of his pole. He was in the water clinging to a buoy and waiting for help to avoid getting bitten by the shark that was "allegedly" circling him.

Although it's possible, it just sounded made up to me. So halfway to the end of the pier is a shack where they sell bait and such. I stop in and ask the guy working there about what really happened. He said it's a load of crap, that the newspaper lied. He said the guy's pole fell off the end of the pier (from a pole holder) and he jumped over to get it as it was the only pole that he owned. He wasn't a good swimmer, so he simply clung to the nearby buoy. Later on in the day a shark was spotted in the water. Then the story grew from there.

The guy telling me was rather angry and upset that they got away with sensationalizing what really happened as he was there.

David

Scott Shepherd
02-11-2015, 11:04 AM
Guys, this is getting really close to heading into a political discussion, which isn't permitted. Please be aware of that when posting.

Dave Zellers
02-11-2015, 11:15 AM
Thanks, Scott.

Back on topic:

There is a saying in the news business - Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

It goes back to the day when newspapers were the main source of news.

Charlie Velasquez
02-11-2015, 11:19 AM
?.... It is so biased in service of its corporate masters that it long ago became completely unbelievable, sometimes blatantly as in Faux News, sometime better disguised. Sorta my feelings. With the advent of Fox News it seems NBC and other mainstream network news broadcast felt they had to go overboard the other way to counterbalance Fox.
Haven't watched network news in a long time. Went with PBS and BBC for a while.
I would have recognized Williams as a newsperson, wouldn't have been able to name him or his network.

Seems news as an entertainment venue as produced by Fox has been a hit, and the other networks have adapted in order to compete.

Maybe I'm naive... Miss the days of Cronkite, Huntley, and Brinkley.

John Coloccia
02-11-2015, 11:24 AM
Sorta my feelings. With the advent of Fox News it seems NBC and other mainstream network news broadcast felt they had to go overboard the other way to counterbalance Fox.
Haven't watched network news in a long time. Went with PBS and BBC for a while.
I would have recognized Williams as a newsperson, wouldn't have been able to name him or his network.

Seems news as an entertainment venue as produced by Fox has been a hit, and the other networks have adapted in order to compete.

Maybe I'm naive... Miss the days of Cronkite, Huntley, and Brinkley.


Guys, this is getting really close to heading into a political discussion, which isn't permitted. Please be aware of that when posting.

Charlie, even though you think we do, not everyone agrees with you, and that's why we don't talk about it here.

Pat Barry
02-11-2015, 11:26 AM
Charlie, even though you think we do, not everyone agrees with you, and that's why we don't talk about it here.
Why should that stop us now? LOL

Bill McNiel
02-11-2015, 12:29 PM
I miss Walter.

BTW- if you have ever "been on the scene" or directly involved in something that made the news you know first hand how little accuracy/truth there is in the published/broadcast report. This is a very sad reality due to the economics of ratings and revenue.

Art Mann
02-11-2015, 12:49 PM
Charlie, even though you think we do, not everyone agrees with you, and that's why we don't talk about it here.

I think Charlie has it backwards. The three commercial broadcast networks were reporting news selectively and with an agenda decades before Fox came around. I think Fox was successful because they provided an alternative bias.

Paul McGaha
02-11-2015, 1:04 PM
1) All those Americans who don't know who Brian Williams is are full of it, live in a cave, only have a one dimensional perspective, or are pulling our legs. Any of these are possible.
2) Brian told his 'story' on Letterman show. I know, who is Letterman, right. The 'story' was told recently about something that happened years ago. To me this is really much ado about nothing
3) If my facts are wrong, please correct them
4) When there is blood in the water the sharks are sure to feed even if they don't know what apparently died.

Pat,

Or:

5) Tend to get their news early in the morning and don't have the slightest idea who any of the evening anchors are.

PHM

Jim Koepke
02-11-2015, 1:24 PM
Being able to trust journalists and reporters is a fundamental pillar of a free society.

Most of my familiarity with Brian Williams was his appearances on David Letterman. Like so many others who have "embellished" the news to advance their own standing he is now likely going to stay out of the picture. Like anyone else who has lost the trust of others, he only has himself to blame.

It would be difficult for me at best not to doubt anything he reports just like any other who lied to people seeking truth. Judith Miller comes to mind and how her story led to many good young Americans deaths because of her complicity in that scar on our history.

People may see different things in different ways. Stories may be different when seen through the eyes of different witnesses. Most of these differences can be accredited to different degrees of nuance. It is when pieces of a "true" story are being fabricated or falsified the story teller needs to face the music.

Unfortunately this only happens with news sources who wish to uphold their reputations. There are so called "news sources" who have no qualms about spreading falsehoods to further their own cause.

jtk

Curt Harms
02-11-2015, 2:06 PM
I think Charlie has it backwards. The three commercial broadcast networks were reporting news selectively and with an agenda decades before Fox came around. I think Fox was successful because they provided an alternative bias.

Pretty much. When the major networks were purchased by by Hollywood and became part of the entertainment divisions, I pretty much lost any confidence I may have had in them. I thought ABC when they were owned by Capital City was pretty honest and unbiased. Since they've been owned by Disney, not so much. The other thing is the way they report things about which I have a fair degree of knowledge. I realize they have to 'dumb things down' but the conclusions I'd draw based solely on the news broadcast is different than what the facts warrant.

John Coloccia
02-11-2015, 2:26 PM
I don't mind bias. I'm a big boy, and I can weed out the junk from actual facts. I get my news from a lot of different sources. That said, it's just absolutely unacceptable to just outright lie and make things up, and that includes reporting the truth in such a twisted way that there's no possible way to figure out the actual facts. So go ahead and inject your bias, but there are quite a few sources which I simply don't even bother checking anymore because they've gone so far over the line as to be completely useless. Save the editorials for the editorial shows, not your actual news casts.

When people like Brian Williams and Dan Rather are so anxious to further their own agendas that they can't be bothered to actually report the truth, they should be removed immediately and permanently, and that goes for anyone else too. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but I think these guys have an ethical obligations. Thanks heavens we at least have the internet these days. The truth is out there...if you care to dig deeply enough. :)

Greg Peterson
02-11-2015, 2:37 PM
Well, what passes for news is really nothing more than a personality stoking the fears and biases of the targeted demographic.
Just because the word News is in the name doesn't mean there is any journalism being practiced.

Scott Shepherd
02-11-2015, 3:08 PM
If this stuff interests you, you should read the new Sharyl Atkinsson book. If that doesn't open your eyes on how the news works these days, nothing will. It's a stunning, stunning behind the scenes look at that business. Once you read it, you'll look at the news, websites, and blogs, all in a very different light. You'll also wonder if anything you're actually seeing on the air or on popular websites people use for their news is actually true.

Chris Padilla
02-11-2015, 3:43 PM
Scott,

I've come to the realization that unless I've seen it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears, smelled it with my own nose or touched it with my own hands, it might not be true or real. How is that for cynical? :)

Scott Shepherd
02-11-2015, 4:19 PM
Scott,

I've come to the realization that unless I've seen it with my own eyes, heard it with my own ears, smelled it with my own nose or touched it with my own hands, it might not be true or real. How is that for cynical? :)

I think that's about where we're at now.

Imagine buildings in D.C. with loads of people in them who's job is to do nothing but post comments on Blogs and feed blog's stories. Then imagine the news picking up "trending" blog stories and reporting them as news.

Some of the biggest "news" websites on the internet are all peddled like that, according to her. She names names, and explains the who process. It's actually really disgusting to see so few people manipulating so much information for public consumption on all sites.

Larry Edgerton
02-11-2015, 4:34 PM
Being able to trust journalists and reporters is a fundamental pillar of a free society.

jtk

Hasn't happened in my lifetime........ You must be really, really old! :)

Larry Edgerton
02-11-2015, 4:37 PM
I think that's about where we're at now.

Imagine buildings in D.C. with loads of people in them who's job is to do nothing but post comments on Blogs and feed blog's stories. .
..

John C is one of those guys. You don't really think he makes guitars for a living do you? :p

Chris Padilla
02-11-2015, 4:51 PM
John C is one of those guys. You don't really think he makes guitars for a living do you? :p

He must play them as well.... ;) :D

John Pratt
02-11-2015, 5:04 PM
re: they all lie

That's nonsense. They may all have some bias. Even Cronkite had bias. They most certainly do not all lie. When your one job is to tell the truth, you'd better not lie.

+1 what John said.

It does matter that he lied and this is not his first time he has "conflated" the truth (to use his words, although I don't think he knows what that means). There were the Brian Williams’ stories from Katrina and his college days which are dubious at best.

Every anchor or news person or network has their bias but that does not give them license to lie about the news. Most do it through selective reporting or through omission if the story doesn't fit the narrative. Sometimes it is selective editing, although I would venture that when selective editing is done and it changes the context, it is the same as lying.

When it comes to the military/war time exploits of these journalists, I think it stems from the times when many of the respected names in news had war correspondence experience, whilst there are very few who are truly embedded with fighting troops today. IMO they seek the accolades that come with saying “you were there”. They all have fortune and fame and they all travel in the right circles, but the one thing they cannot get from those circles is the praise that combat soldiers get. It is something that can’t be bought with money or taught in some school. Even other soldiers look upon combat soldiers differently. Look no further than the smile that Brian Williams has when Dave Letterman called him a hero when he told the story on Late Night.

To those who think it is no big deal, Ask a combat Vet if he thinks it is a big deal when people lie about war time experiences, medals, or accolades.
Everybody wants to be a gangster, until it’s time to do gangster stuff.

Kent A Bathurst
02-11-2015, 5:12 PM
Hasn't happened in my lifetime........ You must be really, really old! :)

I beg to differ, Larry. It has happened in my/our lifetimes, IMO.

And, the newscasters have broken out of the fog of misinformation. Witness: Murrow v Tail-Gunner Joe and Cronkite's 2/27/68 Vietnam broadcast. Woodward, Bernstein, Bradlee, and Graham v Nixon et al. They all stood tall, searched for the truth, and impacted history by telling the story.

Not so much lately, though, sad to say. Too easy to get wrapped up in the fog, and too much 24 x 7 blather to break through the insanity. Too little value placed on cold-hearted insightful analysis. Which gets us aluminum tubes and yellowcake, the Benghazi politically-fueled hyperbole, the two faces of Janus policy on Saudi oil, arms, and funding of militant extremists, the staggeringly destructive effects of collateralized debt obligations followed by record bonuses.

Mine is not a politically-inspired diatribe: It is a sadness over the too-frequent abdication of the 4th Estate of their obligations - not their rights, not their chosen profession, their obligations.

But they are still out there I think. Bits and pieces, "bright spots and sunny spells" as the British weather people say. You gotta be objective, and able to sort through the chaff to find the wheat.

John Coloccia
02-11-2015, 5:45 PM
John C is one of those guys. You don't really think he makes guitars for a living do you? :p

It probably pays better than building guitars, at any rate.

Dennis Peacock
02-11-2015, 5:46 PM
This thread will close tonight. The discussion is truly going nowhere and the topic has wandered far from the OP.

Larry Edgerton
02-11-2015, 5:51 PM
I gave up on broadcast News years ago Kent. I do agree the old school guys were easier to tolerate, had a bit more class and didn't seem quite so obvious as to the direction of their slant. But as an adult I don't think I ever truly believed them. "Selective Truth"has always been a part of news broadcasts even back to the radio days.

My biggest pet pieve is how they fan the fires of civil unrest with speculative reporting before they have any of the actual facts. They create a situation that they can report on and continue to fan those flames until they have milked it for ever point in the ratings they can.

But this is getting too close to breaking the forum rules so I will just shut up before I get in trouble. I have erased most of what I just typed......

Kent A Bathurst
02-11-2015, 5:56 PM
Fair enough, Dennis. Legitimate point, IMO. Thanks for the heads up.

In anticipation of which - one last comment on Brian Williams:

I love - I absolutely LOVE - the unfounded gossip/rumors that say he and Jon Stewart will swap jobs. I honestly think each could do a fine job in the other's post, and Stewart would make a huge change in the over-50 demographics of the Nightly News. He is erudite and smart enough to do an insightful analysis of the news - if you have ever seen the regular bouts he and O'Reilley have on their two shows, you will understand why I say that. Williams is a truly intelligent, witty guy that could pull off the Daily SHow with style, and a very sharp dagger.

Ain't gonna happen, though - but I love the idea.

Kent A Bathurst
02-11-2015, 5:58 PM
My biggest pet pieve is how they fan the fires of civil unrest with speculative reporting before they have any of the actual facts. They create a situation that they can report on and continue to fan those flames until they have milked it for ever point in the ratings they can.

You and I are in perfect agreement on this, Larry. I don't think it applies to everyone in the media, but it sure as heck applies to an unfortunately large % of them.