The Case of Brian Williams

As most people may have heard, Brian Williams was suspended today from NBC News for a period of 6 months without pay. In all practicality, he probably will not return and if he does, his ability as a newsman will certainly be grossly affected. After all, how would he ever again be able to ask the tough question to any politician or suspected liar without having his own past called into question?

From recent accounts it appears that Brian fell into that old trap of trying to make his reporting of the news more and more sensational. From imagined gun fire at his helicopter to supposedly being confronted by armed gangs during the Katrina Hurricane, he always seem to interject a bit too personal involvement into his accounts; and now it has caught up with him. While his punishment might seem harsh, it is hardly the case when so many Americans tune into the news to get the straight and honest accounting of the days events.

Sadly, the news was usually are more subdued and perhaps a little bit boring part of the television experience and it began to change once advertisers were allowed to underwrite the cost of news programs. More and more they wanted “their piece” of the television audience and were more than willing to bend the rules to get it. Over time they have transformed the news from being the authoritative source of information to a constant stream of editorialized comments and entertaining antidotes with not a lot of straight forward news and information. As Dan Rather experienced, the haste to get the story to air and a sure fire recipe for disaster and now, another anchor has fallen hard.

When Edward R. Morrow started the CBS news cast, truth and accuracy were the prime ingredients and there was absolutely no acceptable substitute. He successfully resisted attempts to add advertising in order to make the news cost effective and when CBS tried to kill the news, they got bush wacked by millions of Americans that simply would not tolerate anyone messing with “their news”. But, sadly, as with so many other things, we took our eye off the ball and let the money men get involved and screw up a good thing.

Equally unfortunate are the number of shows that are geared more toward entertainment and just happen to toss in a few bits of news. The Daily Show is one of these and while they have a tremendous following, it is shocking how many of these viewers take the show quite literally, failing to understand the gravity of the show. One could only wonder how they would handled the nightly news during the height of the Vietnam war were we saw actual combat footage every evening. Would the American people have reacted the same? Would there have been the level of protests when it was packaged more as entertainment than reality? Mind you, I’m not against entertainment for the sake of entertainment, but there are many very serious issues that affect the American people and that cannot stand to be minimized or trivialized for the sake of the advertisers. People need the truth and the news was one of the few remaining institutions that supplied it; or I should say used to supply it.

Hopefully the sad fall from grace that Brian Williams is living will serve as a reminder to every journalist of how important and how sacred the trust of the American people holds them to. We can only hope we will continue to hold these icons of freedom of speech & the press to their high standards, for all or our sake.