Journalist Lies About Iraq

[LorenzoValla]

I actually believe that people expect the truth. If what you say is true then the quality of journalism needs to be improved. What some people may "expect" is what the TV journalism gives them...mediocre reporting.

The public wants the sensationalism to be the truth. If they just wanted the truth, journalism wouldn't peddle sensationalism. I don't think people like Williams necessarily sit down one day and decide to lie. I think they are in the habit of distorting the truth so often that they sometimes lose sight of what the truth actually is.

 

[dudalb]

This thread has become one of the worst cases of people trying to showhorn in thier own agenda I have seen.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Gobsmacked at the attempts to defend Williams here.
And trying to turn this into another partisan issue is just plain stupid.

Will the "news" sites fire anyone for the blatant lie they put into their early coverage about Brokaw demanding his resignation, or is that the kind of lie that doesn't matter?

 

[johnny karate]

This thread has become one of the worst cases of people trying to showhorn in thier own agenda I have seen.

The point is that the lie Williams told regarding a personal anecdote is of no real import. But that he's being taken to task by a media that utterly failed the American public in the lead up to the Iraq War is a joke.

Just fire the guy and move on. But let's not pretend like he violated some sancrosanct journalist code of ethics to which all the other media outlets rigidly adhere.

 

[ponderingturtle]

The point is that the lie Williams told regarding a personal anecdote is of no real import. But that he's being taken to task by a media that utterly failed the American public in the lead up to the Iraq War is a joke.

Just fire the guy and move on. But let's not pretend like he violated some sancrosanct journalist code of ethics to which all the other media outlets rigidly adhere.

No one expects a general or a secretary of state to tell the truth, that he was both makes it clear that nothing he said could possibly ever be true. Simple logic that.

It is like anyone actually believed that we didn't torture people, or that abu graib was a few bad apples and not general policy. the bad apple part was taking pictures of course, not the prisoner treatment.

 

[BStrong]

If Brian Williams was flying at 100 knots minimum 30 minutes (low end of reported "following") behind the helicopter that got hit, then he was over 50 miles from the helicopter that actually took fire. This is the difference between being t-boned, seeing the car in front of you get t-boned, and driving past the scene of an accident where someone got t-boned an hour afterwards. Taking fire is not something that you forget - you may misremember who else was there, but not if you were. The Costanza defense won't work here.

Exactly.

This isn't an uncommon situation wrt LEO's and crime scenes - young guys especially will relate a story of being at the scene of an incident which in fact they were, but they neglect to describe their time of arrival.

I've heard some interesting stories over the years from guys that want to talk about a certain battle and when pressed the story goes from "there I was..." to "a guy told me this story..."