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Old 02-06-2015, 01:42 PM
 
Location: Seattle Area
1,716 posts, read 2,026,639 times
Reputation: 4146

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Quote:
Originally Posted by catdad7x View Post
If I understand correctly, he told the lie back in 2003 right after it happened, and has retold it ever since. As for benefiting from the lie, he is paid (handsomely) every time he opens his mouth, and anything that boosts his ratings directly benefits him. He knew what he was doing, he just didn't think anyone would call him out on it.
Yes, you are correct about when it occurred. But I disagree with the balance. He didn't get paid more as a result of "the lie" right? He would have received the same payment if he told the truth. hence your argument that his normal pay is somehow attached to and the result of the lie or it's content is disingenuous at best, outright wrong at worst. I don't think that anyone can show a cause and effect relationship between this statement and his ratings, then subsequently his compensation. These are huge leaps of logic that simply don't work in my book. As for the last sentence, that goes to my first comment..intent. And as I stated, nobody can know for sure what his intent was except him. So all we are left with is evaluating his character and carter as a whole, then forming a personal opinion. Mine is that he had no malicious intent, yours may be different.

Quote:
Originally Posted by budlight View Post
That's not actually true. He was called out about the lie and then had to admit as much. Hardly the voice of someone with integrity. Of course that is up for debate. I call a liar someone with integrity issues. Some give it a pass.
You too are correct about being called out. But I disagree after that. I believe that at some point between 2003 and now he realized that he had made a mistake. What was done was done, and since I don't believe he had any ill intent when he said it, it has only minimal effect on his credibility. You are right again, it is up for debate. I call a liar someone who doesn't tell the truth. Brian Williams did not tell the truth so he is a liar. But I don't look at the world in such black and white terms as you apparently do. I see "shades of grey" in almost everything and that you have to look at the man in his entirety. Assuming he had no intent to deceive and just got caught up in the moment, and he has a long track record of high integrity reporting, I see no reason for him to be let go.

I would add that the press seems to be fueling the debate by saying things like the "service members were seething". I really can't see anyone seething over it. Mad maybe, frustrated sure...but seething seems like an inappropriately strong response aimed at inciting people. I don't know, but I would think that he has been shot at before, seems like most reporters in the field have been. I know I don't immediately think higher of a reporter who was on a military front and was shot at or otherwise had a close call. When he originally said it I didn't say "wow Brian is so brave and such a cool guy, now I'm only watching NBC because of him. It really was a nonstarter.
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Old 02-06-2015, 03:27 PM
 
52,433 posts, read 26,425,742 times
Reputation: 21092
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yakscsd View Post
... He didn't get paid more as a result of "the lie" right? He would have received the same payment if he told the truth.....
Williams made himself out to be a War Hero. Someone who took extreme risk to bring the people the news. He played up that popular mime to increase his own value to the network. So to conclude that it didn't have an effect on his pay doesn't make any sense at all. It's leverage during the next contract negotiation.

He lied, he lied several times, He lied when David Letterman called him a War Hero and he accepted it. There are no shades of grey, as you put it. There are absolutes in this world and he crossed it.
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Old 02-06-2015, 04:15 PM
 
Location: Florida
23,795 posts, read 13,173,633 times
Reputation: 19952
If Ronald Reagan could take scenes from his films and put them in speeches as if they not only happened, but imply that he was there, I don't see the problem. Nobody said Reagan should be fired for "misremembering."

On Reagan: "For another thing, he sometimes described movie scenes as if they had happened in real life. Speaking to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society in December 1983, he told a World War II story of a B-17 captain whose plane had been hit and who was unable to drag his wounded young ball-turret gunner out of the turret; instead of parachuting to safety with the rest of the crew, the captain took the frightened boy's hand and said, "Never mind, son, we'll ride it down together." Reagan concluded by telling the society that the captain had been posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. But no such person existed: the story came from the 1946 movie A Wing and a Prayer. Within a month of this event Reagan told the Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir that the roots of his concern for Israel could be traced back to World War II, when he, as a Signal Corps photographer, had filmed the horrors of the Nazi death camps. Reagan, however, did not leave California during World War II; he had apparently seen a documentary about the camps. "

https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/...rald-blue.html
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Old 02-06-2015, 08:44 PM
 
Location: So Ca
26,619 posts, read 26,529,806 times
Reputation: 24615
Give the man a break. This could happen to anyone.
Scientists explain how Brian Williams' memory may have failed him - LA Times
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Old 02-06-2015, 09:11 PM
 
Location: Southwestern, USA, now.
21,020 posts, read 19,241,904 times
Reputation: 23654
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yakscsd View Post
I call a liar someone who doesn't tell the truth.
Brian Williams did not tell the truth so he is a liar.

But I don't look at the world in such black and white terms as you apparently do.
I see "shades of grey" in almost everything and that
you have to look at the man in his entirety.

I would add that the press seems to be fueling the debate by saying
things like the "service members were seething".
I really can't see anyone seething over it.
You are a calm level-headed person.
We need more of that in the world.
You are the kind of person we need in tension filled moments where diplomacy is needed.
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Old 02-06-2015, 09:16 PM
 
Location: Seattle Area
1,716 posts, read 2,026,639 times
Reputation: 4146
Quote:
Originally Posted by WaldoKitty View Post
Williams made himself out to be a War Hero. Someone who took extreme risk to bring the people the news. He played up that popular mime to increase his own value to the network. So to conclude that it didn't have an effect on his pay doesn't make any sense at all. It's leverage during the next contract negotiation.

He lied, he lied several times, He lied when David Letterman called him a War Hero and he accepted it. There are no shades of grey, as you put it. There are absolutes in this world and he crossed it.
Perhaps, but that wasn't the context of the conversation I was having. You are introducing an issue that wasn't being discussed, nor responded to.
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Old 02-06-2015, 10:07 PM
 
1,029 posts, read 1,292,288 times
Reputation: 341
Just keep Matt Laurer off the damn broadcast! It's bad enough that he's still on Today. I think Holt will be the new anchor imho
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Old 02-06-2015, 11:50 PM
 
3,320 posts, read 5,533,921 times
Reputation: 9681
He clearly has lost all credibility. He didn't make a mistake - he lied... “I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.”

You would absolutely KNOW if you had taken fire and had to make an emergency landing.

I would believe his apology if he would have admitted that he lied but to use the excuse that he made a mistake - no.
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Old 02-07-2015, 01:46 AM
 
52,433 posts, read 26,425,742 times
Reputation: 21092
Quote:
Originally Posted by Yakscsd View Post
Perhaps, but that wasn't the context of the conversation I was having. You are introducing an issue that wasn't being discussed, nor responded to.
Perhaps? LOL

Brian Williams is a liar. There is no other issue except for attempts to whitewash it.
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Old 02-07-2015, 01:55 AM
 
Location: Tucson, AZ
1,588 posts, read 2,518,955 times
Reputation: 4188
All I will say is Brian Williams and the journalists that are imbedded with soldiers are still braver and have more cajones than 98% of the American public. Just like soldiers these guys can and do pay with their lives to bring a bunch of over privileged, overpaid, apathetic, couch potatos thier daily war boners. Everyone that goes to war tells a story that they embellished to make them seem like a hero. You think everything Chris Kyle said in his book was truth? Just do a little research on the amount of embellishment people have discovered from authors writing autobiographies about their time in war zones. Some get caught, some don't.

This is all right wing grandstanding B.S. When Jesse Kelly ran in AZ against Giffords for congress. It came out that many of his stories of his service in the Marine corps were 'not remembered correctly.' Terms like 'haze of war' and 'PTSD' were thrown about but no one on the right ever called him liar. Instead the right attacked a distinguished naval airman and NASA astronaut who was the spouse of the opponent. This of course didn't sit well with the mostly moderate swing voters of southern Arizona, nor did harping on gutting medicare in a retirement community, or pretty much anything else he said. He did even worse against Ron Barber in 2012. Now he works for Citizens United.. the folks who brought us "Corporations are people."

If a Fox News anchor would have lied, it would have been acceptable.

Regardless I could give a crap about a news anchor. I'm sure if he loses his job he will end up with a great gig just like Jesse Kelly. I mean look at John Kerry. These people never hit rock bottom, they just land in some other cushy high profile job. The chosen ones, as I call them.
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