Brian Williams messed up. Badly. He apologized by his apology had a credibility issue. It was fine that he wanted to assure brave people were acknowledged, but he indicated that his memory was faulty. The problem with that is that there are things we never forget. He, of course, remembered that he was in the helicopter and that a previous helicopter had been hit, but his wasn’t. He was in danger, to be sure, but never in the danger that he stated. Now, the man who was touted as the most trusted name in news isn’t very trusted.
I find this sad. I actually find this very sad as I really do like Brian Williams. I think he does a great job on the news and has an excellent sense of humor and always felt a transparent spirit in him. Williams was, to me, one of the really good guys. I don’t know what is going to happen and if he’ll be back on NBC News any time soon. Or any time. I want to overlook this and I probably can, truth be told. The reality is, however, I like Brian Williams and I’m not sure I’d be so generous with my charity if this was someone I didn’t like very much. I really do not know what the wrong thing to do is.
Brian Williams has exposed a major flaw in our national news media. Investigative journalism is largely a lost art and network news programs have regressed into a regurgitation of talking points given to them. Political parties and corporations have hired brilliant communication people who write the talking points and their information, be in accurate or inaccurate, is disseminated and we hear it reported. The networks largely just share the information whereas networks like MSNBC spin it left and Fox News spins it right. By the time we watch the news it has been spun into a weave of cotton candy.
News people have bought into it. When war enters the picture all sort of opportunities come about. Staid and proper journalists go into danger areas and, frankly, they do so because there is excitement to it. They are human.
Who can forget David Bloom? He was put into an Army unit and rode in the armor. The constant sitting in the armor vehicle helped cause a deep vein thrombosis that became a pulmonary embolism and it killed him. Bob Woodruff, of ABC News was critically wounded and suffered a brain injury in Iraq from a roadside bomb. There were some great heroics of the news media in Iraq but none of them questioned very much as to why we were there. They also didn’t question what was found. I suspect WMDs were found. We know Saddam Hussein used WMDs against the Kurds; nerve gas we had sold him in his war against Iran. Did we find the stash? Who asked? No one.
Bengazi? Will we ever know what happened there? There is great speculation on this but most of the inquiring minds had an agenda. Investigative journalism, seeking and reporting the truth, no matter where the truth leads, is no longer in vogue.
Much has been made of the Koch brothers and their spreading financial influence. Some stories tell of us this but the reality is that the average person knows very little about these men. Investigative journalism in the national networks is dead.
Much of what passes for the network news now is entertainment. Do the talking points on some ‘hard news’ and then get to the fluff. The bad news is that even the hard news has turned into fluff. The news anchors have morphed from being serious journalists into being entertainers and they need to remain one step ahead of their competition. As a result we have this.
The founders of our nation built a free press into the system. In France, the killing at Charlie Hebdo was an assault on free press. Charlie Hebdo was satirical in nature, however, and not about investigative journalism. In the United States we have this built into our system, largely, to keep those in power, be it in government or business, honest by keeping people informed. This is no longer happening.
I’m hoping that the whole incident with Brian Williams serves as a wake up call to move from entertainment and reading carefully crafted talking points and challenging networks to become what they are supposed to be. Find the truth and report the truth and allow the truth to speak for itself.
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