[News news] Brian Williams suspended

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 4:18 pm

"NBC Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams is being suspended for six months without pay following revelations that he exaggerated tales from an Iraq War mission in 2003.

Tuesday night's announcement capped an extraordinary and painful six-day period for the network. Television veterans could recall nothing quite like it: a network benching the face of its news division to penalize him for what the CEO of NBCUniversal, Steve Burke, called "inexcusable" actions.

There is a widespread belief among rank-and-file NBC staffers that he may never actually return to the anchor chair he has held since 2004. And if he does return, he'll return in a diminished capacity.
...
For NBC News, the rolling calamity began last month when Williams paid tribute on his newscast to a soldier who had provided security to the anchor and his NBC crew in the desert on that day in 2003.

"The story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an R.P.G," Williams said on-air. "Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded and kept alive by an armor mechanized platoon from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry."

After a video of the segment was posted by the network on Facebook, several soldiers called out Williams for stretching the truth.

Williams, it turned out, had not been on the helicopter that was hit by an R.P.G.
Williams apologized last Wednesday, both on Facebook and on "Nightly News," but what he said raised more questions than answers, and the controversy swelled over the next three days.

As skepticism mounted over Williams' claims about other reporting assignments -- namely his coverage of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 -- NBC News said Friday that it would conduct an internal investigation into the disputed accounts. Williams was once again in the anchor chair that night.

But on Saturday, Williams said he had become "too much a part of the news" and that he planned to step aside from the newscast for "the next several days." Williams hunkered down even more on Sunday, canceling a scheduled appearance on the "Late Show with David Letterman."

By Monday, his attorney was in crisis meetings at 30 Rockefeller Center, where Williams' posters -- celebrating his first-place status in the nightly news wars -- hang on the walls.

Those meetings continued on Tuesday and ended with the suspension announcement.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 4:34 pm

It's nice to see unethical behaviour being punished, but the cynic in me is that this is a PR war and nothing else. If they could have swept it under the table they would have. I base that on nothing but pure cynicism.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 4:35 pm

It's really unfortunate because he was always a great late show guest. Very self-deprecating and funny.

Toe · Post by **Toe** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 4:42 pm

Luckily he has his rap career to fall back on

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YCeIgt7hMs

Anonymous Bosch · Post by **Anonymous Bosch** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 4:58 pm

YellowKing wrote:It's really unfortunate because he was always a great late show guest. Very self-deprecating and funny.

Assuming this write-up from NY Magazine is accurate, Brian Williams did have aspirations to replace Jay Leno as host of The Tonight Show:

NYMag.com wrote:According to two NBC insiders, when the network decided to move on from Jay Leno a few years ago, Williams lobbied NBC executives to give him the host’s chair. “Brian wants to be a late-night comedian,” one former colleague explained. “He traded on being Nightly News anchorman-war-reporter to ingratiate himself with Jimmy, Lorne Michaels, and Jon Stewart.”

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:05 pm

Whenever stuff like this comes out it makes me wonder what investigations of other anchors' stories would turn up.

Moliere · Post by **Moliere** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:19 pm

I seem to recall Brian Williams doing something funny on The Soup with Joel McHale, but I can't find it on YouTube. Isgrimnur, you're up!

McNutt · Post by **McNutt** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:20 pm

After reading all the accounts I could see this being an honest mistake on his part. I've been in a Chinook and they are huge. It would be easy to hear that you took small arms give without having noticed it. Maybe an RPG too if it didn't detonate (which it didn't).

I just don't know why he would lie about it. This penalty seems a little harsh to me.

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:23 pm

Moliere wrote:I seem to recall Brian Williams doing something funny on The Soup with Joel McHale, but I can't find it on YouTube. Isgrimnur, you're up!

Initial searches find only aged out feeds. A deeper dive will have to wait.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:32 pm

McNutt wrote:After reading all the accounts I could see this being an honest mistake on his part. I've been in a Chinook and they are huge. It would be easy to hear that you took small arms give without having noticed it. Maybe an RPG too if it didn't detonate (which it didn't).

I just don't know why he would lie about it. This penalty seems a little harsh to me.

His helicopter did take small arms fire. The issue is that he said that his helicopter took RPG fire (which it didn't), and that it was forced down because it was hit by an RPG (which it wasn't, and whereas in fact his helicopter landed normally). Also his contemporary reports correctly stated that the helicopter in front of him (not his) had been forced down by RPG fire.

It does help his case that his helicopter took small arms fire. It's not *impossible* that over the years he unintentionally conflated stories. The more likely explanation is the natural impulse to make stories sexier over time.

Moliere · Post by **Moliere** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 5:55 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:
Moliere wrote:I seem to recall Brian Williams doing something funny on The Soup with Joel McHale, but I can't find it on YouTube. Isgrimnur, you're up!
Initial searches find only aged out feeds. A deeper dive will have to wait.

Found it, you slacker!

Scroll down and watch the 2'30" video.

If you don't watch The Soup, I recommend watching this video first so you get the Brian Williams references.

LordMortis · Post by **LordMortis** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 6:02 pm

Isgrimnur wrote:
Moliere wrote:I seem to recall Brian Williams doing something funny on The Soup with Joel McHale, but I can't find it on YouTube. Isgrimnur, you're up!
Initial searches find only aged out feeds. A deeper dive will have to wait.

The Soup Presents rarrrrrr with Brian Williams. [graphic of kitten]

the Soup featured occasional spots where Williams went off on pop media stars stupidity on whatever show Willaims does. Williams or his people took notice so he did a couple of guest spots on the Soup. That was a few years ago, though. I haven't kept up with The Soup. It eventually felt like work to try and watch it every week rather than entertainment, so I quit TiVoing it.

Edit: Too slow. Too many tabs open.

Moliere · Post by **Moliere** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 6:05 pm

LordMortis wrote:I haven't kept up with The Soup. It eventually felt like work to try and watch it every week rather than entertainment, so I quit TiVoing it.

I stopped watching the full show a couple of years ago. Now I subscribe to The Soup's YouTube channel and watch their weekly clips. Total viewing time is around 6-7 minutes which is all the reality TV I can handle, even when it's making fun of reality TV.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 6:22 pm

Bet he's wishing his daughter's sex scene on HBO was aired this week and not last month.

I'd agree it's a shame and I don't know how he comes back from it. I mean, he didn't kill anyone but his career is couched in his reputation and now it would seem the media is running down everything he's ever been involved in or claimed to have seen.

McNutt · Post by **McNutt** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 6:30 pm

He isn't Stephen Glass. I just hate to see a good career/reputation ruined by something that could very well have been a lapse in memory.

JSHAW · Post by **JSHAW** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 7:29 pm

McNutt wrote:He isn't Stephen Glass. I just hate to see a good career/reputation ruined by something that could very well have been a lapse in memory.

I'm glad the military men that actually WERE in actual danger called out Williams for his bullshit.

I think there's a HUGE difference in being onboard a chopper that IS or ISN'T being shot at with
RPG's.

Williams knew this, you and everyone else that knows about this story KNOW'S what the difference is.

You either WERE or WERE NOT on a chopper that was taking RPG fire.

There's no "lapse in memory" here. Just a massive ego that needed stroking every time he told
his war story over the many years in which he continued telling his war story lies.

Call the spade a spade...he lied.

RuperT · Post by **RuperT** » Wed Feb 11, 2015 7:32 pm

I kinda feel like Young Turks guy:
http://www.commondreams.org/views/2015/ ... n-williams

McNutt · Post by **McNutt** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 2:26 am

If an RPG hits the Chinook you were on in an area you can't see and doesn't explode, are you sure you would know? If you are in the cargo area of the Chinook when it lands, are you sure that you weren't forced to land?

I can see being in that helicopter and not having a clue what's going on around you. When it's all said and done it's possible he mistook a story about the other helicopter for being his. I'm not saying that's what happened, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. I've seen the report where he's showing the helicopter with the RPG hole on the wheel well or whatever that was and I can believe that he couldn't remember if that was his helicopter or not.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 8:06 am

McNutt wrote:I can see being in that helicopter and not having a clue what's going on around you. When it's all said and done it's possible he mistook a story about the other helicopter for being his. I'm not saying that's what happened, but it's not outside the realm of possibility. I've seen the report where he's showing the helicopter with the RPG hole on the wheel well or whatever that was and I can believe that he couldn't remember if that was his helicopter or not.

His initial reports at the time did say that the helicopter in front of them was forced down by APG fire. It's hard to imagine him getting that mixed up later (though not impossible). It seems plausible to me that he intentionally exaggerated the story initially but, retelling it so many times, convinced himself that it was actually true.

In any event, I don't think that this should be career ending, though I suspect it may be (at least, to him in an anchor role).

DD* · Post by DD* » Thu Feb 12, 2015 8:22 am

DD* · Post by DD* » Thu Feb 12, 2015 8:23 am

DD* · Post by DD* » Thu Feb 12, 2015 8:24 am

tru1cy · Post by **tru1cy** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 9:21 am

I like Brian Williams but he brought this on himself. It's interesting that he was pushing for The Tonight Show hard when Jay Leno wanted to retire. It seems he doesn't like being the face of NBC News and following in Tom Brokaw's shadow. Anyway, Lester Holt is doing an awesome job and the ratings at the moment haven't dipped yet

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 10:26 am

I hear there's a job opening up on the Daily Show....

Jeff V · Post by **Jeff V** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 10:42 am

Zarathud wrote:I hear there's a job opening up on the Daily Show....

Stewart already rates higher in credibility. Wouldn't it be funny if the same happened to Williams if he took over this show?

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 11:39 am

tru1cy wrote:I like Brian Williams but he brought this on himself. It's interesting that he was pushing for The Tonight Show hard when Jay Leno wanted to retire.

Wait...Brian Williams wanted to host The Tonight Show? I don't even see that remotely working if so.

El Guapo · Post by **El Guapo** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 11:43 am

hepcat wrote:
tru1cy wrote:I like Brian Williams but he brought this on himself. It's interesting that he was pushing for The Tonight Show hard when Jay Leno wanted to retire.
Wait...Brian Williams wanted to host The Tonight Show? I don't even see that remotely working if so.

Yeah there have been a lot of reports indicating that he lobbied NBC hard for the job. It's not really surprising insofar as he's done a lot of entertainment work over the years. Mostly short pieces / cameos here and there, but there's a long pattern.

McNutt · Post by **McNutt** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 1:26 pm

Every time I saw Williams do something that was supposed to be funny I though that he wasn't nearly as funny as he thought he was.

Anonymous Bosch · Post by **Anonymous Bosch** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 1:46 pm

El Guapo wrote:
hepcat wrote:
tru1cy wrote:I like Brian Williams but he brought this on himself. It's interesting that he was pushing for The Tonight Show hard when Jay Leno wanted to retire.
Wait...Brian Williams wanted to host The Tonight Show? I don't even see that remotely working if so.
Yeah there have been a lot of reports indicating that he lobbied NBC hard for the job. It's not really surprising insofar as he's done a lot of entertainment work over the years. Mostly short pieces / cameos here and there, but there's a long pattern.

The link is in the 5th post of this thread, hepcat.

Maureen Dowd's piece in the NYT aptly skewered Brian Williams and the continuing trend of other 'News Anchors' regurgitating YouTube videos and other fluff, while performers on late-night TV do more of the serious, fact-based research and due diligence.

hepcat · Post by **hepcat** » Thu Feb 12, 2015 2:00 pm

McNutt wrote:Every time I saw Williams do something that was supposed to be funny I though that he wasn't nearly as funny as he thought he was.

I envision Rupert Pupkin practicing in front of a mirror now.

Anonymous Bosch · Post by **Anonymous Bosch** » Fri Feb 13, 2015 1:47 am

According to CNN and The Huffington Post, Brian Williams could be facing more serious flak regarding his tales of SEAL Team 6, and souvenirs and memorabilia he claims to have received by way of his adventures:

CNN wrote:When he apologized last week for his on-air error about the Iraq mission, he chalked it up to innocent "misremembering." But others have implied something more malicious.

On Thursday The Huffington Post identified questions about Williams' claims of flying into Baghdad with SEAL Team 6 and about "war memorabilia the anchor claims to have received as gifts, including a Navy SEAL's knife and a piece of the helicopter from the raid that killed Osama bin Laden."

CNN analyst Peter Bergen said on "Anderson Cooper 360" that he was told by sources in the Seal community that it would be impossible for Williams to have ever traveled with Seal Team 6.

"We do not embed journalists with any elements of that unit ... bottom line -- no," one Special Operations Command official said.

In the case of the memorabilia that Williams says he received from "his friends" in the Seal community: "that doesn't pass any sniff test," another Seal officer told Bergen.

HuffPo wrote:Starting in 2011, Williams began talking about a 2003 experience with SEAL Team 6, the elite team that killed bin Laden inside Pakistan on May 1, 2011. But at least one SEAL and comments from the U.S. Special Operations Command cast doubt on that tale.

"We have some idea which of our special operations teams carried this out," Williams said on "The Late Show With David Letterman" the day after the raid. "It happens to be a team I flew into Baghdad with, on the condition that I would never speak of what I saw on the aircraft, what aircraft we were on, what we were carrying, or who we were after."

"Now, people might be hearing about SEAL Team 6," Williams said the next night, May 3, 2011, on “Nightly News." "I happen to have the great honor of flying into Baghdad with them at the start of the war."

While it's clear that Williams flew into Baghdad on April 9, 2003, and reported from the airport using a flashlight to illuminate his face, he didn’t get into specifics that evening, or on other network broadcasts. A Lexis-Nexis search of network transcripts didn't yield other examples of Williams mentioning the ride with SEAL Team 6.

But a year after the bin Laden raid, in May 2012, Williams elaborated in another appearance on Letterman's show.

“I flew into Baghdad, invasion plus three days, on a blackout mission at night with elements of SEAL Team 6, and I was told not to make any eye contact with them or initiate any conversation,” Williams said. (Three days after the U.S. invasion would have been March 22, 2003, not April 9, 2003, which was the day Williams broadcasted from the Baghdad airport.)

It's possible Williams did fly into Baghdad with SEAL Team 6 and didn't mention it for over eight years because he had agreed not to discuss the unit's activities, speaking out only after the SEAL Team received attention for the bin Laden raid. But NBC has not confirmed Williams' account of the events. Justin Balding, who was a producer with Williams at the start of the Iraq war and still works at NBC, did not respond to The Huffington Post's request for comment on the flight into Baghdad. An NBC News spokeswoman declined to comment on the flight with SEAL Team 6.

In the 2012 "Late Show" appearance, Williams also recalled carrying a box of Wheat Thins, which he said a hungry special operator dug into with a “hand the size of a canned ham." They got to talking, and Williams told the commando how much he admired his knife.

"Darned if that knife didn’t show up at my office a couple weeks later," Williams told Letterman.

The gifts didn't stop there: More than eight years later, Williams had apparently maintained his relationship with one or more members of the fearsome SEAL Team 6. According to Williams' recollection, one special operator appreciated his relationship with the anchor so much that he sent Williams a precious token from the bin Laden raid.

"About six weeks after the Bin Laden raid, I got a white envelope and in it was a thank-you note, unsigned," Williams said on "Letterman" in January 2013. "And in it was a piece of the fuselage of the blown-up Black Hawk in that courtyard. Sent to me by one of my friends."

The SEAL Team arrived inside bin Laden's Abbottabad complex by means of a specially modified, highly advanced stealth Black Hawk helicopter. The helicopter was reportedly covered in special coating to prevent radar detection.

In February 2014, Williams elaborated on the helicopter gift in another media appearance, this time on the sports talk show hosted by Dan Patrick. "It’s one of the toughest things to get," he said, "and the president has a piece of it as well ... It’s made of a material most people haven't seen or held in their hands."

The White House declined to comment on whether President Barack Obama owns a piece of the stealth Black Hawk.

If Williams' story is accurate, he truly does hold a piece of history -- and a piece of highly sensitive U.S. military hardware. In fact, the helicopter was so valuable that its return to the United States became a minor diplomatic issue of its own in the wake of the bin Laden raid.

McNutt · Post by **McNutt** » Fri Feb 13, 2015 11:23 am

Ok, maybe he is Stephen Glass.

pr0ner · Post by **pr0ner** » Fri Feb 13, 2015 11:42 am

Heard on the news last night that Williams is having claims that he was at the Berlin Wall when it fell investigated too.

Good chance he's outright fired soon.

JSHAW · Post by **JSHAW** » Fri Feb 13, 2015 12:15 pm

pr0ner wrote:Heard on the news last night that Williams is having claims that he was at the Berlin Wall when it fell investigated too.

Good chance he's outright fired soon.

I really thought you were joking. Until I found the story on Drudge Report.

http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/02/ ... -in-socal/

In my book Williams has lost all his credibility.

But it's strange that we as viewers over the years learn to trust and believe other people because
they're nice looking and can read quite well from a teleprompter.

THEN, when they screw up we realize they're just like us, human and they can screw things up just as well as we can.

In the end there can be only one...Walter Cronkite. The man, the myth, the legend.

YellowKing · Post by **YellowKing** » Fri Feb 13, 2015 12:23 pm

Yeah, I'd forgive one incident because lord knows memory is fallible. But the repeated pattern of behavior points to intent.

stessier · Post by **stessier** » Fri Feb 13, 2015 12:33 pm

I don't know - 20 years after the event, I could see being off by 24 hours. The statement being questioned was made in 2008.

What was my wow … I’ve been so fortunate,” he said. “I was at the Brandenburg Gate the night the wall came down.”
What Williams was referring to was the demolition of the Berlin Wall in 1989, but there are now reports that he actually arrived the day after the wall came down.

Williams’ predecessor Tom Brokaw was the only American anchorman to report live from the scene on that historic day.

Moliere · Post by **Moliere** » Fri Feb 13, 2015 12:41 pm

Brian Williams similar to Neil deGrasse Tyson?

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Fri Feb 13, 2015 1:17 pm

Not really. One is telling an anecdote for illustrative purposes, the other is telling anecdotes as part of his credibility, public trust and appeal.

If Tyson's abilities as a physicist hinged on his anecdotes, I might be more inclined to agree.

Note: I did not check the OO link, I'm just assuming I know what you are comparing. i.e. inaccuracies in Tyson's stories about Bush et al.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Fri Feb 13, 2015 1:34 pm

Moliere wrote:Brian Williams similar to Neil deGrasse Tyson?

That Tyson headhunter crap again?

It would be comparable if Tyson said his information about Mars was true because he tried the experiment himself while he was living there.

Moliere · Post by **Moliere** » Fri Feb 13, 2015 1:42 pm

GreenGoo wrote:Note: I did not check the OO link, I'm just assuming I know what you are comparing. i.e. inaccuracies in Tyson's stories about Bush et al.

More specifically, I was referring to this article:

NY Times has an op-ed on Why Our Memory Fails Us.

Does Williams misremember events in the same way that Tyson misremembers events? It's not his credibility as a physicist, but his credibility as a public speaker, especially in the area of politics.