Brian Williams discussion?

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by bob deluke

Don Henley and the Eagles sang it best in "Dirty laundry". Listen to the lyrics.

Henley wrote that song after getting exposed for giving drugs to a young teenage girl and raping her.

He was just mad because he got CAUGHT!


Williams and his ilk get away with this crap because THEY SERVE A POLICICAL PURPOSE.
If certain types of people (libs) didn't eat this crap up, it wouldn't get served to them.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by BE911SC

This is just the latest chapter in the GOTCHA game. Williams embellished a story, some Internet sleuth who hates the MSM caught it and started the exposure process and now he's on leave while the doo-doo storm dies down. Likely a political impetus behind this too since Fox News says a lot of BS daily and no one cares. Just depends on whose team you're on, what tribe you belong to. It's either a tempest in a teapot or a terrible travesty that requires his career to come to an end. Silliness magnified to a status it does not deserve. Or as my father, a newspaper man, would say, "Slow news day." (Stupid sh it leads the news rather than substance.)

The Look squirrel defense.
If the other side's guy does it, you scream burn him, burn him, he's a witch!!!!
If your side does it, you say look squirrel, no big deal, they all do it. Sweep it under the rug.

It's all wrong, no matter who does it. But it sure seems to be one-sided, doesn't it?

[island911]

Originally Posted by RSBob

Williams was a fool and an idiot. That doesn't mean a fool and an idiot can't learn and straighten out. Williams is no dummy and has no doubt learned from the gravity of his transgressions.

There is a sad mentality in the western culture that just loves to take down someone famous. Maybe it is chopping someone who has it made down to their size. Maybe it's more political in nature ....

Or Maybe people are long tired of being lied to from supposed authority sporting a confident manner.

You know, big whopper lies that actually cost people time and money; like If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.. (repeated ad nausium, to pull off the largest tax hike in history)

[island911]

What difference does it make ?

[Tobra]

Originally Posted by BE911SC

This is just the latest chapter in the GOTCHA game. Williams embellished a story, some Internet sleuth who hates the MSM caught it and started the exposure process and now he's on leave while the doo-doo storm dies down. Likely a political impetus behind this too since Fox News says a lot of BS daily and no one cares. Just depends on whose team you're on, what tribe you belong to. It's either a tempest in a teapot or a terrible travesty that requires his career to come to an end. Silliness magnified to a status it does not deserve. Or as my father, a newspaper man, would say, "Slow news day." (Stupid sh it leads the news rather than substance.)

This does not even have a passing resemblance to what happened.

Completely fabricated narrative, you are not Brian Williams in real life are you?

[R K T]

[J P Stein]

hu·bris


/ˈ(h)yo͞obrəs/


noun

noun: hubris





excessive pride or self-confidence.




synonyms:

arrogance, conceit, haughtiness, hauteur, pride, self-importance, egotism, pomposity, superciliousness, superiority; More


informalbig-headedness, cockiness

"the hubris among economists (and talking heads) was shaken"





antonyms:

humility



•

(in Greek tragedy) excessive pride toward or defiance of the gods, leading to nemesis.




Origin

[Aragorn]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

This is the reason I don't understand the importance of this. I may be able to name two ABC/CBS/NBS news people because I've heard the names, but I couldn't identify them with a particular network or program. These people don't register on my radar, let alone what they do.
I'm astonished that anyone finds these people important enough to care about.

Many people still get their news from TV TV Is Americans' Main Source of News (55% according to this 2013 Gallup poll.) With that being said, I think it is important that there is a certain level of trust in the people providing us with this information. I don't really remember where Brian Williams came from. There was some talk of Tom Brokaw retiring and then Williams got the job over some more prominent reporters at NBC (Matt Lauer and Stone Phillips to name a few.)

I grew up watching Tom Brokaw (NBC), Peter Jennings (ABC) and Dan Rather (CBS) on the nightly news. I didn't have one I watched every night but I did usually watch one of them nightly for the world news. I trusted all of them to deliver the news accurately and in the old Edward R. Murrow fashion of checking their facts and reporting impartially. Rather eventually became a disappointment but both Jennings and Brokaw were above reproach in my book. Bob Schieffer (CBS), Katie Couric (CBS) and Diane Sawyer (ABC) all provided what I felt was good reporting for the time they were on the nightly newscasts. Brian Williams didn't. With Williams stating his memory may be incorrect, it calls into question his ability and integrity as a reporter.

[javadog]

If I recall correctly, he reported it accurately on the news, at the time. A dozen years later, he tells a different story. Could be a number of reasons why, not all of them nefarious. Psychologists know that a sizeable percentage of people remember things incorrectly after a while, even significant events. Cops and lawyers know that witnesses can often be absolutely useless, as they get facts wrong. My wife's memory, which used to be irritatingly accurate, has now gone south to the point that she misremembers a lot of things. She'll argue 'til the end of the week that she's right, but she's not. Part of aging...

Who knows what the real story is? None of us, that's for sure. Doesn't stop (most of) us from throwing him under the bus, because we don't like the guy, or don't like the profession, or are just contrarians.

I'm not losing any sleep over this incident. Bigger fish to fry...

JR

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by Aragorn

Many people still get their news from TV TV Is Americans' Main Source of News (55% according to this 2013 Gallup poll.)

I'm obviously one of the 45% who does not get their news from TV. I do know the networks pay insane money for personalities to read the news. That makes no sense to me either.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

I'm obviously one of the 45% who does not get their news from TV. I do know the networks pay insane money for personalities to read the news. That makes no sense to me either.

Ditto. But as long as it ain't my money, they can pay away. I don't watch them and won't see their commercials. I have only ever watched Brian Williams while staying at a friend's house, who is also a reporter and knows BW personally, so he always has him on if he's home at that time. Otherwise, I'd have no idea what this story was about.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by BE911SC

Some perspective on telling stories that aren't true.

Ronald Reagan’s wartime lies: The president had quite a Brian Williams problem - Salon.com
.

How deep into the cess pool did you dig to find that pile of crap site? It makes the natl enquirer look like the wall street journal:

Just for the readers' enjoyment:
More from Salon
•Dad calls cops to teach son a lesson; cops shoot son dead
•My narcissistic wife is ruining my life
•NBC’s Brian Williams to take leave for surgery
•Obama to Boehner: “You get nothing. I get that for free”
•14-year-old girl films father’s sexual abuse with webcam
•Jaycee Dugard’s new “terror”: Her father

[sammyg2]

Evidently Mr. willams made a habit out of lying about himself.

Scandal
NBC's Brian Williams reportedly told differing stories about coming under Hezbollah rocket fire
Published February 09, 2015 •

"NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams could face new questions this week over differing versions of a story he repeatedly told about coming under Hezbollah rocket fire while riding in an Israeli Defense Forces helicopter in 2006, according to a published report.

The Washington Post reported late Sunday that Williams has given differing accounts of how close the rockets came to the helicopter he was riding in over northern Israel.

In a blog post written for NBCNews.com and dated July 18, 2006, Williams said that he was flying "at 1,500 feet" in a Blackhawk helicopter with a high-ranking Israeli general while rockets were being launched by the terror group into northern Israel from southern Lebanon. In the blog, Williams says the helicopter pilot tells him the rockets "landed about 30 seconds ago." At that point, Williams says, he witnesses a rocket launch, about six miles away.
"A rising trail of smoke, then a second rocket launch, an orange flash and more smoke — as a rocket heads off toward Israel," Williams says.

However, a month later, Williams made an appearance on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show", and told host Jon Stewart about "a view of rockets I have never seen, passing underneath us, 1,500 feet beneath us." There is no such description of the rockets passing underneath the helicopter in Williams' original blog post.

The anchor continued, "And we’ve got the gunner doors [open] on this thing, and I’m saying to the general, some four-star: ‘It wouldn’t take much for them to adjust the aim and try to do a ring toss right through our open doors, would it?’ ”

Williams repeated the later version story to a student interviewer at Fairfield University in Connecticut in November 2007.

In that interview, Williams says the rockets passed "just beneath the helicopter I was riding in."

Williams, who has anchored NBC's flagship newscast since 2004, announced late Saturday that he was stepping away from "Nightly News" for "the next several days" following revelations he made false statements about his experience reporting in Iraq in 2003.

Earlier this week, the military newspaper "Stars and Stripes" published a story, based on eyewitness accounts of the incident, saying Williams was incorrect when he said a helicopter in which he and his team were traveling during the invasion of Iraq was hit by rocket propelled grenades.

Williams apologized on air Wednesday, but the firestorm surround the incident has continued, including calls for his resignation.

Questions have also been raised about his claim that he saw a body or bodies in the Hurricane Katrina floodwaters that hit New Orleans.

NBC News President Deborah Turness said in an internal memo Friday that the network has assigned the head of its own investigative unit to look into Williams' statements.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[onewhippedpuppy]

C'mon JR, nobody "misremembers" being hit by an RPG in a helicopter. This isn't a question of whether you dropped off the dry cleaning on Tuesday or Wednesday. If he legitimately is unable to remember a dramatic and life threatening event, he has no business being a news broadcaster.

[Craig T]

The problem is...he's been telling the story so long and often at coctail parties that he started to believe it himself.

[afterburn 549]

Originally Posted by onewhippedpuppy

C'mon JR, nobody "misremembers" being hit by an RPG in a helicopter. This isn't a question of whether you dropped off the dry cleaning on Tuesday or Wednesday. If he legitimately is unable to remember a dramatic and life threatening event, he has no business being a news broadcaster.

I stated that way earlier...
Its would be a BIG FN event!
Plus, if a RPG hit one there would be nothing but taps to play.
I served on the Huey in Vietnam , never a Chinook, there are a lot larger !
How ever I did take a "tour " of a couple, talked to the CE in charge and i was shocked at the walls. They look like they are bleeding (allowed seeps from a million miles of hyd. tubing .)
I could see where one might take some small arm fire maybe and be unaware...
but if you are hit so hard as to do a emergency landing.....your not going to for get it.
The only way to mix that story up is on purpose.

[BE911SC]

Originally Posted by cairns

Utterly stupidly wrong. The people who were actually on the helicopter caught him and posted the facts on Facebook. Stars and Stripes first published the story. The MSM, reluctantly, followed.

Okay, ya got me! I didn't do my research and commented from my gut rather than my brain. See, my gut told me that this was just a media feeding (on itself) frenzy rather than an actual National Moment of Seriousness.

The MSM did not "reluctantly" follow. This is an easy story for them, eating one of their own. Williams has no power over anyone's career so they're gobbling him up. Try going after Cheney after some of the sh it he pulled and your lucrative corporate mainstream media career would end overnight*. The MSM is only as "liberal" as its corporate ownership allows it to be. Williams: Easy. Cheney: Don't you dare.

BTW, John Stewart did an excellent piece last night on how the MSM fell into line during the lead-up to the war in Iraq (led by the NYT) yet is burning Williams at the stake now.

*No more Woodward and Bernstein. Cheney and Rummy are Nixon alumni and vowed "never again." Try to get us and you're we'll eat you alive.

[intakexhaust]

Tell me why this Brian Williams guy is paid millions per year? What an insult. NBC - No credibility reporting and he's the top tier?

[wdfifteen]

^^
I heard on NPR this morning that he signed a contract for $10million A YEAR just in December. He has taken himself off the show "for a while." They talked about how expensive it would be for NBC to keep him and how expensive it would be to break the contract. NBC is apparently weighing it's options. They are assuming Mr. Wilson would insist on his $10 million a year even after rendering himself valueless. If he had any interest in repairing his reputation he would quit, forgo the salary, and live a quiet life on a beach near a bar that makes good Pina Coladas.

[Craig T]

Originally Posted by wdfifteen

^^
If he had any interest in repairing his reputation he would quit, forgo the salary, and live a quiet life on a beach near a bar that makes good Pina Coladas.

Now that would my first choice!…with just 1/4 his net worth.