http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sW6AbX2q0fM
The key question in any ethics problem is usually “What’s going on here?” With Brian Williams’ bizarre admission that he had been telling a false story involving his experience covering the Iraq War for over a decade, it’s impossible to say with confidence what is going on.
We know this: Williams told viewers on his evening news broadcast last week about an incident when he was covering the Iraq war, saying that a helicopter he was flying in was hit and forced down by an RPG. After the broadcast, soldiers began complaining on Facebook:
“Stars and Stripes” noticed, investigated Williams’ account and found it to be false. Williams quickly apologized, both on Facebook and in his Wednesday broadcast. Here is his Facebook recant:
“To Joseph, Lance, Jonathan, Pate, Michael and all those who have posted: You are absolutely right and I was wrong. In fact, I spent much of the weekend thinking I’d gone crazy. I feel terrible about making this mistake, especially since I found my OWN WRITING about the incident from back in ’08, and I was indeed on the Chinook behind the bird that took the RPG in the tail housing just above the ramp. Because I have no desire to fictionalize my experience (we all saw it happened the first time) and no need to dramatize events as they actually happened, I think the constant viewing of the video showing us inspecting the impact area — and the fog of memory over 12 years — made me conflate the two, and I apologize. I certainly remember the armored mech platoon, meeting Capt. Eric Nye and of course Tim Terpak. Shortly after they arrived, so did the Orange Crush sandstorm, making virtually all outdoor functions impossible. I honestly don’t remember which of the three choppers Gen. Downing and I slept in, but we spent two nights on the stowable web bench seats in one of the three birds. Later in the invasion when Gen. Downing and I reached Baghdad, I remember searching the parade grounds for Tim’s Bradley to no avail. My attempt to pay tribute to CSM Terpak was to honor his 23+ years in service to our nation, and it had been 12 years since I saw him. The ultimate irony is: In writing up the synopsis of the 2 nights and 3 days I spent with him in the desert, I managed to switch aircraft. Nobody’s trying to steal anyone’s valor. Quite the contrary: I was and remain a civilian journalist covering the stories of those who volunteered for duty. This was simply an attempt to thank Tim, our military and Veterans everywhere — those who have served while I did not.”
Research has revealed that Williams has been telling various versions of the story for over a decade, sometimes saying he was in a helicopter behind the one hit by fire, sometimes saying, as he did on the David Letterman show last year, that he was actually a passenger on the helicopter forced down. Thus his Facebook apology is misleading, and the one he gave last night even moreso. At Powerline, John Hinderaker explains:
This is the statement that Williams read on-air tonight:
“After a groundfire incident in the desert during the Iraq war invasion, I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago….”
No: Williams has been telling the false story since shortly after the incident occurred. He told it for the last time, not the first, last week.
“It did not take long to hear from some brave men and women in the air crews who were also in that desert….”
Not since last Friday, but it took a decade or more since Williams first told the false story.
“I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by [rocket-propelled grenade] fire. I was instead in a following aircraft. . . .”
Again, Williams tries to mislead: his “following aircraft” landed an hour after the one that took the hit from the RPG.
“This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran and, by extension, our brave military men and women, veterans everywhere, those who have served while I did not…”
A bungled attempt last Friday evening at the Rangers game. Williams implies, once again, that this was the first time he has told the false story. But he is on video telling the same story at least 13 times since 2003.
Williams’s on-air apology, like the Facebook version, was disingenuous. I doubt that it will help him in the long term.
Hinderaker, a prominent conservative political blogger, believes that Williams is certain to be fired as a result of the controversy, the convoluted details of which you can read about here, here, and here in addition to the Washington Post story linked above.
I’m not so sure that he will. Should he?
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz is…
“Can Brian Williams be trusted after this?”
Many of the news reports and blogs assume that Williams was lying; others take his word that he was mistaken, still other misuse the term lying, appearing to accept Williams’ explanation that he “misremembered,” and calling it lying anyway, a common fallacy that drives me crazy. If he knowingly lied about the incident, it seem unavoidable to conclude that Williams is untrustworthy and must be fired. Why would he do that, though, since the story could be invalidated by the soldiers on two helicopters, placing his reputation and career at risk? Hinderaker’s theory involves liberal guilt:
“…if my speculation is right, and liberal guilt caused Williams to make up a story about his own experience that he told, over and over for twelve years, until it finally brought him down, how else has it influenced him? How has liberal guilt shaped stories that he has written and delivered on the economy; on taxes; on wages; on corporate profits; on fiscal policy; on race relations; on affirmative action; and on many other subjects NBC News has addressed over the years? If Williams would make up bald-faced lies in one context to assuage his own liberal guilt, is it unreasonable to think that he and his NBC colleagues have passed off misrepresentations, misleading data, errors of omission and, yes, outright falsehoods in service of the liberal cause on other topics, for the same reason.”
Well, maybe. Isn’t it possible that Williams inadvertently messed up his facts? Even the liberals are dubious: The Post’s Eric Wemple seems to but Willliams’ explanation that his memory was “muddled,” then says elsewhere that “conflating the experience of taking incoming fire with the experience of not taking incoming fire seems verily impossible.” The conservatives have been less charitable, with many writing versions of “Sure, who doesn’t get confused over whether they were in a helicopter being hit by ground fire or just watching one?” Confirmation bias rules supreme in situations like this: many regard Williams at the forefront of liberal media bias, and didn’t trust him before this embarrassment.
I’m willing to give Williams the benefit of the doubt and assume that he made a mistake. Nevertheless, the length and seriousness of the mistake, even if one accepts that his honesty isn’t implicated, certainly casts doubt on his judgment and reliability. You can’t have a network anchorman who makes up stuff, and you also can’t keep one who can’t distinguish fantasy from reality. I don’t see how Brian Williams can be trusted after such a fiasco. A responsible news organization has to fire him.
I have doubts about whether NBC is a responsible news organization, however. We shall see.
________________________
Pointer: memeorandum
Facts: Powerline, Poynter,Washington Post, Mediaite, NPR, Reason
Ethics Alarms 
The short answer is no you cannot trust a journalist that invents facts.
Didn’t Hillary Clinton make a similar claim of ducking enemy fire?
Yup.
But, inexplicably, we hold officials to lower standards than journalists.
Jack, I have to tell you, you motivated me to think harder than I have thought all week, when you said “inexplicably.” I have been obsessing about that. I agree with you that we hold officials to lower standards than journalists. But I simply cannot give up on pursuing a conclusion as to why. There MUST be an explanation; it CAN NOT be too complicated.
So far, all I’ve got is “because of ‘shared stakeholding in agendas’ (between “we” and “officials”),” versus no such substance of a relationship, real or imagined, between “we” and journalists. The journalists are just tools – good-looking, well-spoken validators of what “we” want to hear. At least, that is what we expect and gravitate toward: journalists who validate our point of view. So, they had better tell us what we want to hear, especially about “our” officials. So, we are going to hold journalists to a higher standard, relatively, than we hold our favored officials. Make sense?
I think you are probably right.
But it doesn’t make sense.
In asking if “Brian Williams can be trusted after this,” you’re essentially providing us with a false dilemma. The question is essentially based on the premise that he could be trusted BEFORE this.
And look who he works for.
Not really. Many may have reasonable decided that he couldn’t be trusted before. The question now is whether he is per se untrustworthy.
I was in the VN War for close to six years. Twice, my general asked me to brief a reporter about one of our intelligence activities and I did not want to do it. So he ordered me to do them. I told the reporters to NOT report my location, my name, or the unit’s name. Both times, they did not adhere to all of my requests and both times we were targeted by the enemy.
I know reporters fabricated stories in the VN War. There were some good ones, but there were enough bad ones to spoil the whole bunch of them. They were also riddled with VN aides who were agents for the enemy! So a lot of information went quickly to the enemy about every activity they reported on BEFORE it even got into the news stream!
Stolen Valor post VN War activity that calls out people taking credit for wartime activities that they were not associated with or even served on active duty. When I hear someone start talking about the VN War and hear BS, I immediately ask their name, then their unit, then their dates in-country, etc. I later use the information to report them. They usually start backtracking within a couple of my questions and always want to quickly get away from me.
There are many people who wish they had the guts to serve in wartime. When it seems safe for them to lie about serving, they start doing it on a low key basis and as they get away from it, they up the ante and really go into hero status. We do not need these people being recognized at veterans’ events, or speaking on TV.
How was that general able to keep his commission (let alone avoid court-martial)?
Erm…the General didn’t knowingly give the enemy information?
I’m thinking…
The general had the insane idea that American reporters could be trusted with “background” information so they could more accurately report our activities, which is still done today by this administration and the Pentagon. But he was mistaken. American reporters were/are generally not trustworthy and patriotic Americans.
I can tell from your question that you were never in the military and very likely run or ran with people who like those reporters!
Ejercito, annoying as his questions seem and somewhat objectiveless they appear, strikes me as a conservative, rational, constitutionalist.
I think your last line is off the mark.
Of course, to be fair to you, I’m commenting on the last half of your last line –
the proposition that he sympathizes with or is one of those “reporter types”.
You are accurate that his question reveals a general misunderstanding of military hierarchy.
I understand that generals are responsible to their superiors.
Yep. So the bit of information you are missing is *what his superiors (and there aren’t many of them for a general) told him regarding the actions of his subordinates*.
Journalism should be regulated to the same extent that New Jersey is allowed to regulate handgun ownership.
strikes me as a conservative, rational, retaliatory-constitutionalist.
I don’t see any significant chance that this is a “misremembering.” That would almost have to require some sort of physical trauma.
Brian Williams should not be trusted to inform any public about anything.
For me the “apology” is the significant thing. I do NOT believe his story and I don’t believe he believes it either. He’s still lying and a weasely apology makes it much worse. This is not an apology it’s another lie.
This is not an apology it’s another lie.
****************
Precisely.
He makes me sick, just the smirking sight of him.
The mere fact that he works for NBC is a black mark! But when he referred to some fairly graphic sex scenes performed by his young actress/daughter as “Just acting”, then I had him spotted as one totally bereft of character. If a father can make a statement like that, being a chronic liar can almost be assumed, as it’s a lesser offense.
Come on, he is a WANT -TO-BE! He wanted to make himself as brave, possibly a hero when he was not… His character like ever so many journalist, actors, actresses and especially those in government is completely empty of ethics, integrity, truthfulness and morals.
No dice, this is not just a lie, but a stolen valor kind of lie, which is that much worse. You can lie about a lot of things, but you don’t lie about being in battle or about being a POW. I think they should just give the veterans who were actually under fire that day five minutes alone with him, but, since I’m sure back-alley beatings would be ruled unethical, in the alternative NBC needs to cancel his ticket, right now, as in frog-march him out of the building, block all his access, and tell him that anything he left in his office will be shipped to his home. Then they need to air a big, honking veterans’ appreciation special, pull out all the stops, I mean Gary Sinise hosts, Trace Adkins sings, all the big names in the veterans’ support community there.
He won’t be fired. The following rationalizations will defend him:
1. Everybody does it.
We live in an age where everyone wants to be the “sufferer who made it through”. This has been growing culturally since the 90s. I am loathe to mention a few sources as though these are the only sources of this phenomenon, because they aren’t the only sources. But the emphasis on the passing WW2 generation that began in the 90s combined with the veterans of the current war allowed us to see first hand, “sufferers who made it through”. And not only that, THOSE guys made it look easy. It makes everyone else feel less and want to also be “bad asses”. Another thing I’ve noticed in my generation, a generation with arguable emphasis on the self – I’ve seen so many people try to exacerbate how they were “tough cases”…yeah came through parents divorced…yeah came from poverty…yeah was a delinquent…yeah wasn’t exactly a good kid…but here I am now, I made it.
Everyone wants to be the bad ass. This has an endemic effect on people’s recollections of their own achievements. Everyone embellishes stories (which I have no problem with as Good Storytelling goes, but it’s an issue when taken to the extreme we see now).
6. Biblical rationalization, 19. The Perfection Diversion, and 20. The “Just One Mistake Fallacy”.
11. The King’s Pass, 21. Ethics Accounting, & 34. Success Immunity
This will be prevalent in his political circles. He’s been just too good to let this bring him down (minimizing the significance of such a lie).
22. The Comparative Virtue Excuse
I’ve seen Fish Stories, especially related to military adventures, go from “I had a rough landing” to “both my legs fractured” in a matter of months. Related to the phenomenon described above…everyone wants to be the bad ass. Bryan Williams, probably suffering from this malady, probably DID misspeak when relating his adventures, but then fell in love with the vision of him being an overcomer…and then he assumed the Lie. But from the basis of the initial “misremembering” (or whatever it’s called), he’ll be defended because there are worse liars out there, or “misremembering” isn’t THAT bad of a problem, and if it hadn’t been for the “misremembering” the BIG LIE never would have happened, so we can only judge the “misremembering”…and it isn’t THAT bad!
33. Management Shrug will be weakly used.
38. Miscreant’s Mulligan.
Because of the “Fish Story” effect of people naturally trying to build up their own role in Great Adventures, people will say “oh take it easy on him.”
I think you’re right. I hope you’re wrong. If he keeps lying in his apologies, he might make it impossible to keep him.
You’re getting good at wielding the Rationalization List!
I would say that Dan Rather’s “goof” and Geraldo Rivera’s outright lie also qualify, and look what happened to them….nothing. Likely be what happens to Williams, as well.
Well, not quite true – Mary Mapes was fired outright in 2004 and Dan Rather was ah, eased into retirement. For some reason, though, an unsupported attack on a president or stolen valor probably isn’t considered to come up to the level of Helen Thomas’ statement that the Jews in Israel all need to go home to Poland, Germany and wherever, or Jim Geraghty’s anti-Semitic tweet, both of which were absolutely fatal, or even Martin Bashir’s certifiably insane statement about what should be done to Sarah Palin, which let him teeter on the brink before going over.
You do recall that the Stolen Valor Act was declared unconstitutional, right?
First version, right. A less expansive one was signed in 2013. I use the term as “shorthand” for false claims of bravery, heroism, or danger.
A piece of the Stolen Valor Act was too strong so it was rewritten and passed again.
Yes, that piece would be the one that wouldn’t have applied to Williams even in the original version. Lies are still, per SCOTUS, protected speech unless they are designed to defraud.
My default is never believe any news item until you can verify it. That includes local news. I’ve seen too much of this kind of reporting.
I used to think my dad was a cranky old cynic then I realized he was an experienced realist. To misquote Mark Twain. It’s amazing how smart he became as I got older.
I am not saying this is the case and I am absolutely not trying to condone any lie. However, I could imagine that if he was in any of those copters and not a trained soldier that he could have some sort of PTSD that could cloud his memory of what actually happen.
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/post-traumatic-stress-disorder-ptsd/index.shtml
” Sometimes people remember the event differently than how it happened. “
As I say, I’m giving him the benefit of some very huge doubts. He still is per se untrustworthy, because we don’t know.
I wouldn’t trust this guy regarding anything. I wouldn’t trust him to walk my dog. This guy fabricated reality knowing there were people there who would know he was lying but even that didn’t stop him from lying. And he’s still lying about his lying! Actually, people like this are very scary. They cause damage to people’s lives wherever they go.
I agree with a couple of commenters that although Williams should be fired, he will not be fired. He will instead be presented some kind of award. An award that will be designed and presented deliberately in a way that facilitates the public’s forgiving AND forgetting of Williams’ “mistakes.” To begin with: After all, he DID go out with those troops into harm’s way, and unlike the troops, was unarmed – so his courage was “above and beyond.”
” his courage was above and beyond” You do not understand the meaning of those words. Being there is not above and beyond.
Luckyest is the king of sarcasm here.
(reply to Howard A. Daniel III Feb 5, 3:51 pm)
I was writing in the “imaginary tense.” That is, I was imagining (or, trying to imagine) how someone attempting to honor Williams might spin the facts (his being there in harm’s way, plus his being unarmed) to construe, or derive, or spin, a “fact” that Williams’ courage in his “misremembered” circumstance was extraordinary. I was not being serious. (I see Tex caught that, at 3:56 pm, since he knows me by my history of commenting.)
WHAT A LOSER!!!!! Still trusted?????
“He will instead be presented some kind of award. An award that will be designed and presented deliberately in a way that facilitates the public’s forgiving AND forgetting of Williams’ “mistakes.”
“Yes! Because pathological lying is a real condition from which people suffer. And Williams is suffering and needs our compassion not our scorn!”
“Misremember?” You either remember or you don’t. And you don’t LIVE on this “misremembrance” for 12 years. He could just as easily have reported the true facts of the case, and be respected just for being one of the “embedded journalists” in the war. Yes, they were protected (using military forces that would have been better spent elsewhere), but it takes a bit of guts to even agree to go. Why wasn’t that enough for Williams? He did get to report from (sort of) the front lines. What’s the need for lying to ramp up his involvement? Narcissism, rationalization, and deceit: the deadly disease of politicians and journalists. Williams has to go, or every NBC reporter, past and present, is forever tainted –or at least that’s what I would think were I an NBC exec…
Actually, no. Human memory does NOT work that way. Consider http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suggestive_question for instance.
Yes, he should be dismissed for this breach of trust. . If he lied about this, then his credibility is called into question or other matters, even though his the nightly news teleprompter reader guy. His role as the managing news editor calls into question his objectivity and implicates bias. I completely agree with texaggo4’s points, arguments and analyses, This wasn’t some ‘fog of memory. This was rampant and intentional distortion of the facts. He wont be fired, though, for most of the reasons stated above.
I, for the life of me, can’t figure out what Williams gained by pushing the narrative, though. I scratch my head, perplexed. During the Letterman interview, he went into vivid detail about the dangers he faced. Letterman calls him a ‘true journalist’ and a ‘war hero’, and the heart and soul of the NBC Nightly News. He had an opportunity to clarify or correct the record and he didn’t; in fact, he embellished about the dangers he faced while being imbedded with men and women he rightly refers to as true heroes.
Over at Powerline, John Hinderaker analyzed Williams’ reasons. He breaks it down to three categories: 1. It burnishes his credentials as a war correspondent, a reporter and a man; 2. Admiration for men and women in the armed forces and the dangers they face (rightly so), and 3. Assuaging liberal guilt for making piles of cash for relatively no risk where members of the armed forces face incredible dangers for a mere pittance of what Williams gets paid. Here is his blog link: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/02/do-brian-williamss-lies-matter.php (Aside: I like the Italian subtitles; nice touch.)
I am not sure I agree with Hinderaker’s point about liberal guilt for making tons of cash; Williams seems to have genuine respect and admiration for members of the military. I think the bigger issue is that he wanted to inflate his war correspondent credentials, to make himself sound more important than he actually is. He has a cushy job; he gets to read stories from the insulated safety of his newsroom and teleprompter. That is really risky business. I don’t begrudge him success (though I envy his bank account . . . ). He has worked hard, he is ambitious. Telling the world that he faced a savage enemy fighting whiling carrying bridge parts at the beginning of an invasion, and lived to tell about it, . . . well, that’s a whole different story.
jvb
Check out the headlines at Newsbusters…and some of the liberal-biased sites aren’t much nicer. And there’s this…http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/02/05/the-brian-williams-scandal-is-an-nbc-news-wide-scandal/
Oh…Media Matters apparently never heard of Brian Williams.
I doubt that Williams will face any serious consequences for his lies. Mainstream journalism in general has lost any claim to the public’s trust. ABC has never taken any action against Brian Ross for his many stupid, sensational and unethical “blunders” in his never-ending quest for more awards. The collective bar is certainly not set very high by the conduct of most journalists. Read the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics some time and see how you think most of today’s reporting measures up.