The Media’s Amazing Disinterest in Brian Williams’s (And Hillary Clinton’s) Lies
As the controversy over Brian Williams continues, one of the things I find interesting (but not surprising) is how disinterested Big Media was in the possibility that Brian Williams might have been lying:
Mr. Summerlin said that Mr. Williams’s helicopter was part of a different mission and at least 30 minutes behind theirs. His account is supported by two of the pilots of Mr. Williams’s own helicopter, Christopher Simeone and Allan Kelly, who said in an interview that they did not recall their convoy of helicopters coming under fire. After the initial piece aired on NBC in 2003, Mr. Summerlin and his crew went looking for reporters on their base in Kuwait to tell them about the inaccuracies in Mr. Williams’s reporting. Instead, they wound up leaving notes in several news vans encouraging them to get in touch. Years later, they were still frustrated by Mr. Williams’s recounting.
“When he was on the air on the Letterman show, I was going crazy,” Mr. Simeone said. “I was thinking ‘This guy is such a liar and everyone believes it.’ ”
Well, of course. Nobody in Big Media was going to tell them different.
P.S. I love this bit from the New York Times story linked above:
It’s not unprecedented for a public figure to exaggerate his or her experiences, especially when it comes to military conflict. In 2008, then presidential candidate Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton acknowledged that she had misspoken when she described having to run across a tarmac to avoid sniper fire after landing in Bosnia as first lady in 1996.
She “had misspoken.” Yeah. Her claim was a lie and got four Pinocchios from the Washington Post fact checker. But the NYT is going to say she “misspoke” because calling the lie a lie won’t do — not when she is going to be the Democrat nominee for President in 2016.
In a speech earlier this week, she talked about “landing under sniper fire” and running for safety with “our heads down.” . . . Footage from CBS shows Clinton walking calmly out of the back of the C-17 military transport plane that brought her from Ramstein Air Base in Germany.
Watch for yourself as she ducks her head and runs:
Maybe we can get Brian Williams to “moderate” one of the debates Candy Crowley style, and “correct” the GOP nominee when he calls her a liar on this issue. “Actually, the New York Times said she merely ‘misspoke.’ Can you please move on, sir?”
Ain’t Big Media great?
Ding.
Patterico (9c670f) — 2/6/2015 @ 7:55 amI’m wondering, what page of the NYTimes did this story appear on?
seeRpea (9a7f2e) — 2/6/2015 @ 7:59 amNBC is more willing to criticize people on the Right who do this. They even made a movie about a similar claim by Joe McCarthy.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:07 amIs it wrong of me to now actively, fervently hope that companies like the New York Times end up in the same leaky boat with Sears, Chrysler or Radio Shack?
Mark (c160ec) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:10 amThe problem with news is there are no editors in any meaningful sense of the word. It seems so long ago but it was really only a generation ago when real editors ran their news rooms. As long as ratings and sales are more important than truthful reporting the blow-dried puffers will rule the newsroom.
crazy (cde091) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:11 amThis is what happens when presidents get away with perjury.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:12 amcrazy, there are editors but they edit for spin now.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:13 amif even one of these propaganda whores starts telling the truth the whole fascist information management scheme collapses
happyfeet (a037ad) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:15 amLayers and layers of editors and fact-checkers…
carlitos (c24ed5) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:17 amthe thing is
even if somebody DID once shoot at a plane he was on
Brian Williams is still a sleazy cowardly propaganda whore
this changes nothing
you know it
I know it
the New York Times knows it
same with Hillary Clinton
trash is trash rpg or no rpg
don’t get it twisted
happyfeet (a037ad) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:24 amre #6, thank you KevinM.
seeRpea (9a7f2e) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:32 ami was saying 15 years ago it wasn’t a good idea to let a PotUS commit perjury just because of the polls.
happyfeet called someone a whore! Everyone be angry.
Leviticus (f9a067) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:35 amif you don’t have anything nice to say you’re supposed to just not say anything at all
but then everyone forgets about you unless they have tasteful remembrance art from amazon to remember you by
unless of course you have something nice to say
which i don’t
happyfeet (a037ad) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:43 amAll Williams needs is a Magic Hat to help sear… sear fantasies into his memory bank and the picture will be complete.
Amazingly, Williams will probably pay NO price for his many lies.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:46 amAce and Tom Blumer have it right… http://ace.mu.nu/archives/354809.php
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:47 amHelp is on its way to Williams. The pilot of his help is now saying that they did get shot at just not an RPG.
According to Rich Krell, who piloted the Chinook helicopter in which Williams was riding during the Iraq invasion in 2003, the vehicle did receive enemy fire, just not from an RPG. He also said there were just three helicopters flying together — with his being the middle one — and not four as Williams previously stated. It was the “first bird” flying out in front that was struck by the RPG and forced to land.
I wonder when his NBC job starts ?
But Krell description of the helicopter taking fire disputes the accounts given to Stars and Stripes claiming that Williams was “nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire.”
Whatever. The cover story is now in play.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:48 amIn a perfect world, Brian Williams would be tossing salads in Abu Ghraib…
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:49 amOn Friday morning, Krell told me that “the information I gave you was true based on my memories, but at this point I am questioning my memories.”
Oh Oh. Maybe the job fell through.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:49 amThey gave me the hat. I still have the hat, to this day.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:49 amMike K, Krell has walked back his story after he, too, was called out for his fantasies.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:50 amMmm… salad.
carlitos (c24ed5) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:50 amwhat does the after action report say, Williams had four different version of the story,
narciso (ee1f88) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:51 amAfter Action Report: “… And they all lived happily ever after, The End.”
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/6/2015 @ 8:54 amjust call it the ministry of fudge:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/05/vladimir-putin-aspergers-syndrome-pentagon-studies
narciso (ee1f88) — 2/6/2015 @ 9:01 amYou really don’t think Krell got two missions mixed up or that the mission that took fire had a news team on board but not the NBC crew?
seeRpea (bcd9d2) — 2/6/2015 @ 9:02 amseems to me that Krell “misremembered” or “forgot” as opposed to B.W.’s b.s.
I saw that article. It was straight out of “men who stare at goats.”
carlitos (c24ed5) — 2/6/2015 @ 9:05 amThe word you want is “uninterested”. A judge is supposed to be disinterested, i.e. he has no stake in the outcome, but if he is uninterested it means he is not paying attention to the case. In this instance, I doubt the media is disinterested. 😉
nk channeling Donald Hamilton (dbc370) — 2/6/2015 @ 9:06 amremember that Scooter Libby was convicted on the basis of less murky recollections than this,
narciso (ee1f88) — 2/6/2015 @ 9:07 am2. seeRpea (9a7f2e) — 2/6/2015 @ 7:59 am
The quotation is taken from page B8 – where is another story about Brian Williams as well – a “The TV Watch” column. In fact the New York Times devotes all of page B8 just to Brian Williams! But the story started on the front page, and is, in fact, the third most prominent story in the paper.
The New York Times is late to the story, and maybe came to it because it does like to report on important things going on in social media.
The front page headline is:
The two stories ahead of it are the right front page column head about U.S. and Europe working to end Ukraine fighting, and the left column head about the massacres and misrule by Boko Haram in Nigeria.
I think this definitely has to be the third most prominent – it has three columns. There is a one column lead also about poltical fundraiseres, especially for Democrats, especially for Hillary Clinton, pocketing 12 1/2% of contributions, and David Brock defends it.
The New York Post whole front page is devoted to this – not too many people who read or pass by newspapers can miss it, and there are 4 pages inside about this – pages 4 through 7 – plus an editorial.
The New York Daily News has nothing. The Daily News is anti-New York State Democrats but close ot national Democrats. Or what some people at the paper would do is forbidden if the connections of the publisher are too important.
Its big story today is about a 911 scandal – the city’s attempt pver 10 years to revamp 911 system which went way over budget. Most or all of that concerned Mayor Bloomberg. The story is that costs were buried in other budgets.
They had nothing yesterday either. The big story in New York yesterday was the MetroNorth commuter railroad crash in Tuesday’s evening rush hour. That took an extra to make the CBS Evening News – I think that only on Thursday.
Stories take time to spread. The al-sisi speech and afollowup speech only got into the Jewish Press New York based weekly) this week.
The Wall Street Journal, curiously, seems to have nothig about Brian Williams either. Maybe they are working on a story, and it just wasn’t ready. You can get pretty confused about this, because it looks like there were multiple levels of lies. Some were told right away.
John Podhoretz, in fact, in his column, which runs (and with pictures takes up all of) page 7 of the New York Post, gets thinbgs wrong. He seems to be assuming that the helicopter Brian Williams was on was shot at, although not hit, like he later claimed. But it wasn’t fired on at all, and it wasn’t on the same mission, although it may have had the same destination as the helicopter that was fired on and landed.
What seems to be true, is that Brian Williams was out of contact with NBC for 2 days because his helicopter did not take off after landing because of a sandstorm. They landed near the helicopter but I get the impression they may have taken off again, and then landed a second time elsewhere.
He was of course, in a war zone, and ahead of the front line. It was a little thing that somebody wanted to make into a big thing. and somebody, at some time after the initial report, mislabeled the story in the NBC archives.
Sammy Finkelman (e806a6) — 2/6/2015 @ 9:10 amso are we really surprised at their behavior, after Dateline, Zimmerman and their behavior here;
http://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/libby-trial-its-a-lot-easier-to-throw-hand-grenades-than-it-is-to-catch-them/14260?red=tn
narciso (ee1f88) — 2/6/2015 @ 9:11 amso in a more significant example, he sold the lie:
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-baker/2012/10/26/incredibly-prime-time-interview-brian-williams-treats-obama-victim-bad-
narciso (ee1f88) — 2/6/2015 @ 9:18 amKrell was probably trying to help and got caught.
The military hierarchy is rotten these days. They squat and strain when the administration says sh*t.
It didn’t last long. In 2011, shortly after a book by author and Marine Bing West came out that detailed Golsteyn’s heroism and quoted him making critical remarks about the American strategy in Afghanistan, I learned that the Army had launched a criminal investigation into his actions during the battle. (Again, full disclosure: I was also interviewed for that book, The Wrong War, and make a brief appearance in it.)
The investigation, apparently, had nothing to do with the acts of bravery that earned Golsteyn his medal. Instead, according to the Washington Post, which cited officials familiar with the case, it concerned “an undisclosed violation of the military’s rules of engagement in combat for killing a known enemy fighter and bomb maker.”
That, of course, was a lie.
Now, the other shoe drops.
Alerted about the controversy by another Army officer, Captain Will Swenson, Congressman Duncan Hunter wrote last year to John McHugh, the secretary of the Army, asking about the status of Golsteyn’s seemingly endless career freeze. Apparently the secretary did not take kindly to the inquiry, as he responded in a letter last November that not only would he not be upgrading Golsteyn’s Silver Star to a Distinguished Service Cross, but would be revoking Golsteyn’s Silver Star entirely, a fact that Hunter revealed publicly in an article for the Daily Beast published on Tuesday.
William’s story and the fact that it took 12 years to surface is just the tip of the iceberg. Kerry’s silver star is, of course, safe and hanging on his wall. It never got thrown over the fence.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 2/6/2015 @ 9:19 am25… I think someone enlisted Krell’s assistance to help provide BW cover.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/6/2015 @ 9:21 amLest we forget:
Christmas in Cambodia.
3 Purple Hearts but no one else saw the “enemy”. Self inflicted? A personal Vietnam exit strategy?
The Democrats have a long and illustrious history of making these things up. And when those who served with the liar refute the claims of valor, they become “swift boaters”.
bobathome (f208b6) — 2/6/2015 @ 9:23 amtry to make sense of this:
http://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2015/02/06/white-house-to-unveil-call-for-strategic-patience/
narciso (ee1f88) — 2/6/2015 @ 9:26 amIt’s not really a big deal like saying he could see russia from his back porch. Oh wait, nobody really said that. But, that didn’t stop the lame stream media from making a big deal of it.
If the media was honest perhaps our politicians would be too. Now only one side has to be honest.
Jim (84e66d) — 2/6/2015 @ 9:35 amNot only is Krell backing off his story, but so is CNN
http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/06/media/stelter-iraq-pilots/index.html
(CNN links this from its main page at the moment, but it’s actually in the financial section of the site)
Meanwhile, waiting to be called in for a doctor’s appointment this morning, I was treated to a typical CNN discussion segment devoted to Williams’s claims. So they are not exactly ignoring it. Of course, NBC is a rival network…. I didn’t pay attention to what they were saying. The interview with the Gronk in a two month old ESPN magazine was far more interesting.
kishnevi (94a358) — 2/6/2015 @ 9:56 amboyfriend needs to quit his job and switch to a cheaper brand of dog food
happyfeet (a037ad) — 2/6/2015 @ 10:05 amShepard Smith on FOX NEWS is as guilty of making up Katrina horror stories as Brian Williams, the only differences were that Smith played to a largely separate audience and was almost hysterical in his on-air tear jerking personal eye-witness accounts of ain’t it awful tall tales.
ropelight (55e912) — 2/6/2015 @ 10:12 amNo surprise there… Sheppie Smith is a liberal.
Colonel Haiku (2601c0) — 2/6/2015 @ 10:50 amkatrina is where the propaganda sluts first realized there’s really no such thing as too big a lie
and this is how we ended up with obama
it’s a very poignant story
happyfeet (a037ad) — 2/6/2015 @ 10:51 amHands up, Don’t drown!
ropelight (55e912) — 2/6/2015 @ 10:53 amMedia Matters could not be reached for comment, but did point out Buuuuuuuusssssssssbhhhhhhhhh
JD (1a76f9) — 2/6/2015 @ 11:30 amUsually when a significant public figure such as Williams is caught up in a great controversy, the MSM mounts a Death Watch at his home, filming his every move, even the servant picking up the papers from the drive-way.
askeptic (efcf22) — 2/6/2015 @ 11:37 amBig business can be taught a lesson.
mg (31009b) — 2/6/2015 @ 12:31 pmChoose your products wisely, and always buy from a non member of your local Chamber of Commerce.
Advertisers listen when the sheep switch brands.
Brian Williams’ Katriana lies appear to be (I’m not yet clear on when they got started)
1) That he saw dead bodies, or at least one dead body, float by him outside his hotel window in the French quarter.
Problem: The French Quarter wasn’;t flooded. That was all on dry land. The 9th ward was really flooded.
2) That he ingested some contaminated water and gor dysentry.
Problem: No one else who was in New Orleans at that time was known to get dysentry.
And, also it probably wasn’t contaninated. You have to excrete into it. Also, dystentry has to start somewhere, and there wasn’t any before.
Unclean water does not cause disease. Unclean water + pathogens causes or spreads disease. It doesn’t uually happen the first day.
Sammy Finkelman (e806a6) — 2/6/2015 @ 12:45 pmThanks Sammy. So the NYTimes is taking the B.W. story seriously and giving it major space.
Odd that WSJ is completely ignoring it – do they consider it gossip? no, B.W. addressed it.
hmm, maybe B.W. will not survive as lead anchor.
seeRpea (8193fc) — 2/6/2015 @ 1:50 pmLet’s have more threads on ISIS and the Jordanian offensive. And what’s this ISIS propaganda about an American hostage accidentally killed by Jordanian warplanes?
The Emperor (b304c8) — 2/6/2015 @ 1:59 pmPerhaps the new nbc anchor will come from aljazeera.
mg (31009b) — 2/6/2015 @ 2:11 pmno seriously he needs to resign to spend more time with his family and rescue puppies and such
you’ve let a lot of people down, Brian
but you’ve let yourself down most of all
You have a lot of thinking to do.
happyfeet (a037ad) — 2/6/2015 @ 2:18 pmThey aren’t disinterested. They’re uninterested. But I’m a pedant, and even so acknowledge that this useful useage distinction is almost totally eroded now.
You want a judge who’s interested (concerned) and disinterested (fair), but not a judge who’s uninterested (paying no attention).
When I first heard about this Brian Williams thing, I had to actually Google him to find out who he is. I haven’t watched a network newscast (ABC, NBC, or CBS) since the 2004 election.
Now that I’m up to speed, I’m pretty sure Brian Williams actually accompanied John Kerry up-river into Cambodia back in Christmas 1972, while Nixon was president.
Beldar (fa637a) — 2/6/2015 @ 2:26 pmSorry, Christmas 1968. See, that’s the kind of memory slip that can be excused. Not “… and I was there, too.”
Beldar (fa637a) — 2/6/2015 @ 2:27 pmbut Nixon was not President in 1968 🙂
seeRpea (8193fc) — 2/6/2015 @ 2:39 pmThe fact he viewed his daughter at work, should be grounds for booting his azz to the curb.
mg (31009b) — 2/6/2015 @ 2:43 pmYes, seeRpea, sorry, I was making a shorthand reference that presumes too much detailed memory about the SwiftVets controversy and Kerry’s career. That was indeed my point, that Nixon didn’t take office until January 1969 — and the first several times that Kerry told his Christmas 1968 in Cambodia fable, John Kerry had forgotten that:
Kerry said that because (like Brian Williams) he was making the whole thing up, and it’s hard to avoid that sort of continuity error when you’re making things up. Especially the things that you claim are “seared — seared! — into your memory.”
Beldar (fa637a) — 2/6/2015 @ 2:51 pmhttp://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2015/02/brian-williams-has-gone-from-trusted-voice-to-an-internet-joke.html/
mg (31009b) — 2/6/2015 @ 3:01 pmre #54: i know Beldar, didn’t you see the laughing face on my one liner?
seeRpea (8193fc) — 2/6/2015 @ 3:04 pmre #55: Good one! really like the photo. hey, maybe he should change his name to Zelig.
seeRpea (8193fc) — 2/6/2015 @ 3:06 pmAhhhh. Gotcha.
Beldar (fa637a) — 2/6/2015 @ 3:11 pmOT- The Serbs have a saying Da bog da ti kuca bila na CNN-U
mg (31009b) — 2/6/2015 @ 3:45 pmMay your house be live on CNN.
The serbs have dragged traditional insults kicking and screaming into the 21 century.
It is going to be so very hard deciding who should be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 2/6/2015 @ 7:34 pmOdd that WSJ is completely ignoring it
At times, it is easy to forget that only the WSJ editorial page is conservative. The news sections lean left pretty strongly except on business items. If Williams is fired, there might be piece on the effect on advertising revenue. That’s it. Think of Business Week, which was pretty far left that last time I tried to read it.
Mike K (90dfdc) — 2/7/2015 @ 7:34 am53. seeRpea (8193fc) — 2/6/2015 @ 2:39 pm
I think that a mistake that John Kerry made.
John Kerry did not tell that story when he was a member of Vietnam Veterans against the war. That was not one of early 1970’s lies, which were mostly, or all, about what other veterans of Vietnam had experienced or been part of, and neither did he claim a medal for this.
He only started telling that story in 1979, when the movie Apocalypse Now came out. I think the wanted people to believe that movie was really about him, or was based, in part, on him.
From Steven H. Scheuer’s “Movies on TV and Videocasette” (1989-1990 edition):
Also see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kerry_military_service_controversy
Sammy Finkelman (e806a6) — 2/7/2015 @ 5:13 pmYou can see the Boston Herald movie review that Beldar @55 quoted the Washington Post quoting here:
http://www.angelfire.com/ak2/intelligencerreport/rightwing68a.html
As a post on Free Republic points out, he connected himself to Apocalypse Now:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1190071/posts
Now actually, Kerry may have meant to say that, later but, before, or at the time when he ordered the incursion at he end of April 1970, President Nixon said that.
Or he may have been writing for a partially ignorant or non-vigilant audience.
Very likely, it really wasn’t a slip. Kerry knew he had to say 1968, because that was the only time he was in Vietnam, but the Nixon statement (probably from the time of the incursion) was just too good to leave out.
He was aware that not many people were solid on just when President Nixon took office – and anyway, he didn’t actually say Nixon was president then.
Sammy Finkelman (e806a6) — 2/7/2015 @ 5:15 pmseeRpea @47 Odd that WSJ is completely ignoring it
62. Mike K (90dfdc) — 2/7/2015 @ 7:34 am
I hadn’t thought about that. I was relating it more to the fact that they work with NBC on a poll. The WSJ/NBC poll. The two news organizations have a relationship. But maybe you need something more than a close working relationship (at least on some things) to explain this, so maybe a leftward bias comes in. Rupert Murdoch doesn’t seem to have changed anything at the Wall street Journal, in any direction.
Otherwise, it is not really that biased, at least insofar as omitting stories. The editorial page also had nothing, but that usually takes more time, any time to get to something new.
Today, in the Saturday/Sunday February 7-8, 2005 Wall Street Journal, they do have a story. It didn’t take him getting fired to get a story into the paper. It’s just in the business section, and is the least prominent of any of the four papers I looked at. It runs down the righthand column of Page B1 (continued on page B4) and is about ,or focuses in, the fact that NBC has started an investigation. That forced their hand.
In general, news organizations like to get ahead of important changes, and be the first to cover them. That’s true almost regardless of any bias. They can’t let something big happen without having covered it. Surprised people might look to other sources of news. So if it looks like something could happen or is about to happen, they write about it.
Sammy Finkelman (e806a6) — 2/7/2015 @ 8:33 pmThe New York Daily News also mentionned it for the first time in the Saturday paper, and, in fact, tried to make it look like, to a casual reader, that it had broken the story!!
The big headline is about Whitney Houston’s daughter. But across the bottom of the front page is this:
Small picture of Brian Williams and the words:
The news is about the NBC investigation. (and just to show impartial NBC is, ABC is doing it too, supposedly.
Anyway, Paragraph 7 says:
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/tv/nbc-investigate-brian-williams-iraq-lie-sources-article-1.2105738 In a statement released Friday after nydailynews.com broke the story about the investigation, NBC News honcho Deborah Turness said Williams has apologized again to staffers and “specifically expressed how sorry he is for the impact this has had on all of you and on this proud organization.” The online article has:
But they couldn’t put that in the printed paper because that would sound really strange.
Online, people don’t know what was NOT written before, but if you read a printed paper, you probably read it daily, and read, or scan the headlines of, most of the first few pages or main section, and any pages where related stories would appear, be it sports or whatever, and you know when there was no mention or at least prominent mention of something..
And people would read “The News” as being the printed paper when those words are in the printed paper. Online, who knows what did or did not, especially did not, appear before.
The Daily News actually did break it – NBC did not release anything about Brian Williams on Thursday or Friday – somebody friendly leaked that to the Daly News. The New York Times also reported it came from the Daily News (deep deep in their article) and that they had confirmed it
with several people in the news division and also obtained a copy of the memo distributed at NBC.
The New York Times has a story only in the Business section, but it’s the lead story, at the top of 4 pout of 5 columns on page B1, and continued to Page B6, where it is one of 3 stories, going across six columns in the middle of the page. They also have some quotes about internal investigations not being so good.
Sammy Finkelman (e806a6) — 2/7/2015 @ 8:51 pmIn the Daily News article, only by paragraph 10 do you get a mention of Wednesday’s broadcast. It has got to be mentioned for those who didn’t know about it.
There seem to be untrue things in the Daily News. It looks like somebody is trying to spin things.
We have the claim that ABC is also investigating Williams (which seems to be untrue) an anonymous quote about Brian Williams having no friends at the network and internal anger against him, and somebody is trying to push the idea of Katie Couric succeeding him.
There’s a box about
Page 19 contains almost National Enquirer type stuff with anonymous quotes – but it also reports a denial, and that’s probably true and needed to avoid a libel suit.
There is also a link to an editorial. The editorial writers, it seems have been given their freedom – or maybe orders – to write things against Brian Williams. The editorial alludes to two more problems with Katrina that haven’t bene mentioned on Patterico:
3) That his hotel or staging area was overrun with gangs
Problem: Nobody else knows about that.
4) That he was rescued in the stairwll by a cop with whom he remained “friends to this day.”
Problem: Where’s corroboration? At this point you doubt unlikely stories.
It also alludes to the puppies (by the way, possibly when he said “puppies” he might have meant two incidents, one real, one imagined)
They’ve also got an op-ed piece about how common it is to see veterans lie about wars – the true heroes never say anything, and that’s reasonable because nobody would believe them (!)
I guess it was commissioned before other things besides the Iraq story got some attention.
Sammy Finkelman (e806a6) — 2/7/2015 @ 8:52 pmThe New York Post’s front page is again about Brian Williams and refers you to pages 4 and 5.
It has some new suspicious claim by Brian Williams (besides the puppy story)
He told Alec Baldwin on WNYC radio in 2013 that he had left somebodys deathbed to cover the Princess Diana crash story.
You see, he had a very good friend who had “Agent Orange-related cancer”
Now that’s a lie in itself. Maybe some liberals would believe it, but Agent Orange is not a problem. The dioxin impurities were the problem, and this sounds like he’s backing up some other story. This fits in with my consultant-gave-him-those-lies-or-told-him-to-lie theory.
Anyway he was in the hospital room with him and his pager went off (Sept. 1997 was before he had a cellphone I guess) and it said “Diana, car accident, Paris.” He had just done Nightly News for Saturday he says. He called the office and they told him to come in.
Problem: Who knows if that’s true? (that he was visiting somebody in the hospital.
And, “Agent Orange-related cancer?”
Brian Williams claimed in 2013 that his coverage was shown on cable in Europe, but he hadn’t expected it. That would mean MSNBC I guess, which had started in 1996. He said he had no idea that this was going to go into Europe, and that people “to this day” tell him they were watching him.
Another story is that he saw someone commit suicide at the Superdome. He told that to Tom Brokaq in an interview.
Problem: In a later (?) version, he did not personally witness this suicide.
The New York Post also has a story on page 21 (Business) about how, the writer predicts, NBC willstand by Brian Williams (his ratings and the ad revenues it generates are too high)
There are some letters to the editor too.
Sammy Finkelman (e806a6) — 2/7/2015 @ 9:18 pmI missed some things from Friday’s New York Post.
There’s a 45 word squib with a 6-word headline at the bottom right hand corner of Anddrea Peyser’s column on page 12.
And there’s also a cartoon on “Page 6” which has now been pushed all the way to page 18 (I think it started on page 6 in 1976) when Rupert Murdoch bought the paper the first time)
It’s much better than the twitter photshps because all of those things place Brian williams at a place he was not. But what this involves is Brian Williams being somewhere he says he was, only things didn’t happen the way he said.
There’s a man in a helicopter with an NBC logo by the back, apparently Brian Williams, flying over a 2-lane road which has some grass growing on the edges. The only thing on the road is a horse drawn carriage.
Evidentally this is Amish country in Pennsylvania, or maybe it is just somebody’s imagination.
And he’s saying:
Sammy Finkelman (e806a6) — 2/7/2015 @ 9:21 pm