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Should Brian Williams be fired

Should Brian be fired?

  • Yes

    Votes: 36 60.0%

  • No

    Votes: 24 40.0%
  • Total voters
    60
sawdust said:
I say, who cares? His work as a news anchor is fine. He screwed up a story about himself, nobody was killed in the process, he admitted it. It's just an interesting footnote in the history of the mainstream media.

I'm getting a little tired in the days of social media, where everyone has the opportunity to butt into the lives of others, calls for action against people who are really strangers. I also think tweeting for social causes, as if tweeting bring back our girls, was going to influence Boko Haram, is a sign of a mental disorder. News flash, nobody cares and it's not important.
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His one job as a journalist on that helicopter was to give an accurate account of what happened. Instead, he chose to lie and aggrandize the story to make it about him.

That's about the worst thing a journalist could possibly do.
 
ironhorse said:
Hey if you want to get your news from a guy that is a compulsive liar and or has no sense of reality that is your choice but please don't vote based on anything he tells you.
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Sorry, but nowhere in the 19th Amendment does it say that you get to tell me what will, or will not, affect which lever I pull.

I'll make my own choices, thankyouverymuch.
 
Erod said:
His one job as a journalist on that helicopter was to give an accurate account of what happened. Instead, he chose to lie and aggrandize the story to make it about him.

That's about the worst thing a journalist could possibly do.
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I agree that journalists should tell the truth. Fact is, I'm more surprised when they do than when they don't. If you really care about this, don't watch hm. Personally, the middle east is phuqued, the economy is setting itself for a free fall, and Obama won't take Islamfascism on at face value and tries to justify it by recalling the crusades. I think we have bigger issues than Williams lying about a helicopter ride. This belongs on TMZ, not a headline on the major media.
 
The mistake is made when viewers expect broadcast "news", and even more so broadcast "news" personalities, to report facts.

Where is it written that "news" reporters and tv "news" personalities will not lie, will not mislead, will not distort the facts? There is no written contract, there is no social contract between news organizations and the viewing, reading, listening public. None.

Trust can only be violated when and where trust has been extended.
 
Risky Thicket said:
The mistake is made when viewers expect broadcast "news", and even more so broadcast "news" personalities, to report facts.

Where is it written that "news" reporters and tv "news" personalities will not lie, will not mislead, will not distort the facts? There is no written contract, there is no social contract between news organizations and the viewing, reading, listening public. None.

Trust can only be violated when and where trust has been extended.
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Let's face it, most of those screaming and whining about his breach of trust are unlikely to have ever watched him.
 
ironhorse said:
I say yes! What a freakin liar! How can anyone believe a word he says now? The man has lost all credibility.

NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams last night had to make the humiliating admission that he was not aboard a helicopter hit by RPG fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a false claim that he made and was repeated by the network for years.

Williams — who’d claimed he was in a chopper forced down by a rocket-propelled grenade 12 years ago — repeated the story on Friday’s newscast during a tribute for a retired sergeant major.

“The story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq, when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG,” Williams said on Friday’s show. “Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded and kept alive by an armor-mechanized platoon from the US Army 3rd Infantry.”


He was busted when vet Lance Reynolds commented on the “Nightly News” Facebook page, where the clip was posted, “Sorry, dude, I don’t remember you being on my aircraft. I do remember you walking up about an hour after we had landed to ask me what had happened.”

Amid a vicious ratings battle with ABC’s “World News Tonight,” which has positioned anchor David Muir as an equally strong on-the-scene reporter, Williams, who has a $10 million-a-year deal with NBC, made an embarrassing apology.

He claimed on Facebook that he had confused events: “I spent much of the weekend thinking I’d gone crazy. I feel terrible about making this mistake.” Stars and Stripes, which broke the story, reported that a different Chinook was hit by rockets and “the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft . . . Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter.”


Brian Williams admits he wasn’t on helicopter hit by RPG in Iraq | Page Six
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If there were integrity in our press, he would be fired. But there's not, so he won't.
 
with only 18 credits while in college, he should not have been hired.....
If he was 3 inches shorter, 30 pounds heavier, and not good looking, he wouldn't have gotten an interview in the first place.
 
Manc Skipper said:
Let's face it, most of those screaming and whining about his breach of trust are unlikely to have ever watched him.
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Does it matter who watched him. Nope. Not the point.
He told of a personal event during the war. Where does he get off for lying?
 
ReverendHellh0und said:
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If people watch the Letterman video it should make them puke. Not only did he pontificate about his lie about being shot down (yes...literally...shot down...forced to 'figure out' how to land that thing hard), but then he was with them as they took ground fire and set up a perimeter. That lying bag of donuts was all but fixing the boys hot MREs.

Misremember. Bungled. Horse****.
 
After thinking about this overnight, I find myself believing that if it was my news organization, and I wanted to maintain credibilty with my viewing audience, then I would fire him. I think that Tom Brokaw, who Williams replaced as anchorman, had a lot to do with my deciding this way. Yesterday he himself remarked that Williams should go.
 
Superfly said:
Sorry, but nowhere in the 19th Amendment does it say that you get to tell me what will, or will not, affect which lever I pull.

I'll make my own choices, thankyouverymuch.
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I never told you not to vote I politely asked you not to vote. I even said "please". IMO anyone who knowingly gets their news from a known liar and then votes based upon what this liar says should not vote but you are correct you have that right.
 
VanceMack said:
If people watch the Letterman video it should make them puke. Not only did he pontificate about his lie about being shot down (yes...literally...shot down...forced to 'figure out' how to land that thing hard), but then he was with them as they took ground fire and set up a perimeter. That lying bag of donuts was all but fixing the boys hot MREs.

Misremember. Bungled. Horse****.
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It's stolen valor. He's trying to live off the lives our soldiers live and to be a part of something he has no right of claim to.
 
ironhorse said:
I never told you not to vote I politely asked you not to vote. I even said "please". IMO anyone who knowingly gets their news from a known liar and then votes based upon what this liar says should not vote but you are correct you have that right.
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I'll keep this in mind if Brian Williams ever runs for office.
 
Since he is supposed to be in the information business and his information has been shown to be untrustworthy, the answer is obviously yes.
 
d head said:
Williams lied telling his combat story.
Clint Eastwood lied telling Kyle's.

So what?

Combat sucks.
Let the liars have their fun making **** up.
It makes such an entertaining yarn.
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Please relate the "lie" in Kyles book or movie.
 
By definition, stolen valor under US law would require him to have claimed to have served in the armed forces. He never said he did. Secondly, I imagine in a combat zone its easy to be so stressed than you don't remember everything 100% accurately. Plus, when somebody talks for a living, its not uncommon for things to come out wrong sometimes. I say give the guy a break. I honestly don't like this "one strike you're out" rules some people demand.
 
CRUE CAB said:
Please relate the "lie" in Kyles book or movie.
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I dont know, are any of the following claims by Kyle in his book?:

- I killed thirty looters during Hurricane Katrina

-I killed two car jackers outside of Dallas, Texas. Once I identified myself as a SEAL on special duties, the cops gave me a "wink and a nod", then let me walk away

- I heard Jesse Ventura disrespecting the President in general, and SEALS in particular. I then punched him out and went on with my business.

-While leaving for deployment, I wallked past hoards of "baby killer" protesters at the San Diego airport *


At the end of the day, Kyle was both a hero and a "teller of fish tales". Being a teller of "fish tales" does not negate his heroism. It just means that blind and total acceptance of anybody is not a good idea.


*Possibly could have happened, but nobody else, either military, nor civilian, seems to remember the "Baby Killer" protesters at the airport in conservative San Diego.
 
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CRUE CAB said:
Unverifiable in both ways. Seeing as he is dead. You don't know one way or the other. So its just easier for you to call him a liar. Way to support.
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Good grief, blind and total acceptance of anybody is not a good idea.

It is a very clear and very evident fact that no sniper (police, military, civilian or martian) killed thirty looters from the top of the superdome during Katrina.

Likewise, the fact that there is no confirmation of the dead car jackers from a coroners office, police, or press reports leads me to conclude that it never happened. And no, I dont think the police tossed let Kyle go after they learned he was a SEAL, then tossed the bodies into a ditch sans reports.

All this aside, Kyle is a hero and deserves to be accepted as such- just not blindly affirmed.
 
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Cryptic said:
Good grief, blind and total acceptance of anybody is not as good idea.

It is a very clear and very evident fact that no sniper (police, military, civilian or martian) killed thirty looters from the top of the superdome during Katrina.
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I don't accept one or the other.
 
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