Frankly, I just don't see how he comes back from this.
NBC's Brian Williams under fire
- Thread starter the G-man
- Start date
a) it was the NBC live version of Peter Pan
b) NBC had promoted both that and its predecessor the live version of Sound of Music on his news show so it seems that wasn't his fault and probably above his pay grade.
If Fox takes a stand against child molestation, does that mean you'll be willing to defend pedophile priests.
Dr. Funkenstein
Lieutenant Commander
That doesn't really matter to me. Someone's going to be reporting about that, and more than likely, they'll be doing it by reading a teleprompter themselves rather than having been the ones to investigate it.
Which is my point: All he is now is a guy who reads things other people have written. Whether he's a stone cold liar or Jesus reborn, it doesn't really matter, especially since it's also the news agency's duty to insure the news being reported is accurate, too.
You could replace him with a random street bum, and the same job would be done. Just not with as much charisma.
As far as I'm concerned, it's like being outraged at the check-out girl at Wal*Mart for selling me a radio that doesn't work when I get it home.
That said, I get that people are upset about him misrepresenting stories when he was an actual reporter. But I don't see why I have to trust him (or anyone else) who's just sitting on their fat asses reading the news now.
Agree. NBC news anchor Brian Williams has been revealed to be like another NBC SNL character Jon Lovitz's Tommy Flanagan, i.e. both liars.
Last edited:
If Fox takes a stand against child molestation, does that mean you'll be willing to defend pedophile priests.
We already had an incredibly bizarre topic on that once, we don't need to repeat it.
I see what you did there with the thread title.
Seriously, that was completely unintentional.
I assumed it was intentional too. A wonderfully happy accident!
He was an anchor when he went to Iraq, too, for MSNBC/CNBC.
If Williams had wanted to be judged as a news reader, he could have stayed behind the desk, just as you say. But networks like to be able to market their anchors as "real" journalists, running promos that show them in flack vests in war zones, weathering hurricanes, talking to disaster survivors etc. And though you personally may not care about an anchor's trustworthiness, it has historically been highly valued by viewers and networks alike, at least since Walter Cronkite was labeled the most trusted man in America. In the business that Williams is in, at the level he's at, being seen as honest and trustworthy is the currency.
a) it was the NBC live version of Peter Pan
b) NBC had promoted both that and its predecessor the live version of Sound of Music on his news show so it seems that wasn't his fault and probably above his pay grade.
If Fox takes a stand against child molestation, does that mean you'll be willing to defend pedophile priests.
Chuckle. Bad analogy.
Fox is notorious for manipulating it's coverage of events, inserting "facts" where none exist, etc. So to see them bemoan the loss of journalistic integrity is at the very least, amusing.
I think we can all agree that even though Brian Williams has permanently ruined his journalistic credibility, he still has much more credibility than just about anyone on cable news.
If you want real news, get out in the world and find it first hand. If you want entertainment, watch tv and read a newspaper.
Brian Williams is an entertainer; whether he's telling the truth or not doesn't really matter. If you're looking for truth on television, then you're looking in the wrong place; and that's not Brian Williams fault.
Brian Williams is an entertainer; whether he's telling the truth or not doesn't really matter. If you're looking for truth on television, then you're looking in the wrong place; and that's not Brian Williams fault.
If you call yourself a news show, you are claiming to be reporting the truth. If news shows just want to be entertainment, they should preface each episode with the disclaimer "For entertainment purposes only, events we are reporting may be severely embellished or may just not be true."
This whole argument of "You should expect everybody is lying to you all the time anyway" which also gets applied to sneaking obtuse legalese into user agreements to enable spying is a load of BS. It is not acceptable to establish yourself in a position of trust and authority then abuse that position to manipulate things to your own advantage. That's not acceptable under the guise of 'Oh you should know that's how the world works', that's called just being a generally awful person.
This whole argument of "You should expect everybody is lying to you all the time anyway" which also gets applied to sneaking obtuse legalese into user agreements to enable spying is a load of BS. It is not acceptable to establish yourself in a position of trust and authority then abuse that position to manipulate things to your own advantage. That's not acceptable under the guise of 'Oh you should know that's how the world works', that's called just being a generally awful person.
Dr. Funkenstein
Lieutenant Commander
Again, damning him for the reports he created in the past is fully understandable.
Needing to trust some guy reading someone else's news reports? I don't get that at all. It could be Adolph fucking Hitler reading the teleprompter for all I care; it's the news channel/station/source that needs to be trustworthy, not the random guy or girl they have reading it because they have a pretty face and nice voice.
Needing to trust some guy reading someone else's news reports? I don't get that at all. It could be Adolph fucking Hitler reading the teleprompter for all I care; it's the news channel/station/source that needs to be trustworthy, not the random guy or girl they have reading it because they have a pretty face and nice voice.
This entire news cycle has become a joke of OTT.
A slap on the wrist.
What do you want them to do?
This is clearly a "If the ratings do't hit the floor we will keep the new guy, if the ratings drop we will call Leno, I mean Williams back".
I would prefer a firing.
Exactly what I was thinking. If the ratings don't go down this is tantamount to a firing.
NBC is probably looking into how much a liar is and what his contract reads before they fire him so they don't need to pay him off.
Oh, probably.
From News president Deborah Turness' letter quoted in the article that Aldo linked to:
Deborah Turness said:
They probably determined that they could go ahead and suspend him, in order to effect immediate consequences, while they continue to figure out the best long-term solution. Turness asserted there that this isn't the end of it.
