Well big shot NBC anchor Brian Williams got caught in a lie.
Well actually he got caught telling a lie over and over again for many years and now network execs are looking into a whole series of possible fabrications and his expense account to boot, while he cools his heels for six months without pay.
That six months pay is reportedly in the $5 million range.
We’ll see if Williams is ever welcome back in the chair. Rumor has it there are other journos like Katie Couric who are eyeing it and that Tom Brokaw has wanted him gone for a while now.
I’ve got two observations about this. One is that Williams is not exactly a journalist, he’s a news reader.
The paradox of broadcast journalism is that once you get to the coveted top spots you’re not collecting news you’re presenting news collected by others. Often as sort of an MC of news where you introduce someone reporting from the field. It used to be that you worked your way into that comfortable position with your reporting creds, but more and more it’s all about being good-looking, having a nice speaking voice, and being able to radiate sincerity. All of those things Williams has in spades.
They are also the characteristics of a good serial liar.
But face it, it’s not likely anyone is ever going to come to broadcast journalism with the cred of Walter Cronkeit, Mike Wallace, Andy Rooney, or Paul Harvey again. Maybe it was a case of envy, of wanting so much to be like those giants of yesteryear that his fantasy life became more real than his real life.
And maybe there’s something else as well.
We live in a world today where sober academics proclaim that there is no absolute truth, only “social constructs.” And this has filtered down to the street as well.
I remember a few decades ago when a particularly vindictive ex was going around telling people (including calling up my mother) that I’d “beaten her up twice.” I had not, and in fact nobody among our circle of friends and acquaintances believed her. Among other reasons, she had no bruises to show and by that time her manifest charm was beginning to slip and she was alienating a lot of other people.
One friend of hers however said I was harsh to call her a liar.
“How so?” I asked. “She told a lie, and not a harmless one.”
“Well maybe it was true for her,” she replied.
“It – did – not- happen,” I said. “It’s a lie.”
“Well maybe it’s true for her,” she repeated.
Understand, she was not claiming I was the liar and my ex wasn’t. She was saying we each had our own contradictory version of the truth – and they were in some sense both true. I don’t know about you, but the idea of this concept permeating our courts and newsrooms gives me cold chills. I think it’s already permeated our politics.
Hillary Clinton did not run through sniper fire at the Tuzla airport in 2008. Barack Obama’s mother was not denied reimbursement for insurance claims in 1995.
But I think the difference between some of the lies told by public figures these days, and good old-fashioned lying to cover up something wrong, illegal or embarrassing, is these are not self-conscious lies but self-aggrandizing stories told by people who do not believe there is such a thing as objective truth.
Pants on fire!
Well big shot NBC anchor Brian Williams got caught in a lie.
Well actually he got caught telling a lie over and over again for many years and now network execs are looking into a whole series of possible fabrications and his expense account to boot, while he cools his heels for six months without pay.
That six months pay is reportedly in the $5 million range.
We’ll see if Williams is ever welcome back in the chair. Rumor has it there are other journos like Katie Couric who are eyeing it and that Tom Brokaw has wanted him gone for a while now.
I’ve got two observations about this. One is that Williams is not exactly a journalist, he’s a news reader.
The paradox of broadcast journalism is that once you get to the coveted top spots you’re not collecting news you’re presenting news collected by others. Often as sort of an MC of news where you introduce someone reporting from the field. It used to be that you worked your way into that comfortable position with your reporting creds, but more and more it’s all about being good-looking, having a nice speaking voice, and being able to radiate sincerity. All of those things Williams has in spades.
They are also the characteristics of a good serial liar.
But face it, it’s not likely anyone is ever going to come to broadcast journalism with the cred of Walter Cronkeit, Mike Wallace, Andy Rooney, or Paul Harvey again. Maybe it was a case of envy, of wanting so much to be like those giants of yesteryear that his fantasy life became more real than his real life.
And maybe there’s something else as well.
We live in a world today where sober academics proclaim that there is no absolute truth, only “social constructs.” And this has filtered down to the street as well.
I remember a few decades ago when a particularly vindictive ex was going around telling people (including calling up my mother) that I’d “beaten her up twice.” I had not, and in fact nobody among our circle of friends and acquaintances believed her. Among other reasons, she had no bruises to show and by that time her manifest charm was beginning to slip and she was alienating a lot of other people.
One friend of hers however said I was harsh to call her a liar.
“How so?” I asked. “She told a lie, and not a harmless one.”
“Well maybe it was true for her,” she replied.
“It – did – not- happen,” I said. “It’s a lie.”
“Well maybe it’s true for her,” she repeated.
Understand, she was not claiming I was the liar and my ex wasn’t. She was saying we each had our own contradictory version of the truth – and they were in some sense both true. I don’t know about you, but the idea of this concept permeating our courts and newsrooms gives me cold chills. I think it’s already permeated our politics.
Hillary Clinton did not run through sniper fire at the Tuzla airport in 2008. Barack Obama’s mother was not denied reimbursement for insurance claims in 1995.
But I think the difference between some of the lies told by public figures these days, and good old-fashioned lying to cover up something wrong, illegal or embarrassing, is these are not self-conscious lies but self-aggrandizing stories told by people who do not believe there is such a thing as objective truth.