This week posed a threat to NBC Nightly News’ Brian Williams’ career. Reports testified that he had falsely accounted being on board a military helicopter in Iraq during 2003 that was hit with an RPG and had to make an emergency landing. He is under additional scrutiny about false statements regarding events he witnessed while covering the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Although these statements may have been referenced in interviews rather than news broadcasts, the public has still lost its trust in the man they count on for the truth. It looks like that handsome face and perfect TV voice can no longer disguise who he really is: a liar.
Williams may have recently lost every bit of credibility, but skimming through articles about the scandal demonstrates that most take philosophical license with reporting.
CNN reports all question Williams’ credibility while Fox News openly and quickly condemns him for being a “fool,” among other things, and for diminishing the experiences of veterans and those in the military. Williams’ own network, NBC, only addresses his apologies and subsequent removal from the spotlight. The news has become more of an ideological battle between political platforms than sincere news reports.
Since the American Revolution, the press has been a huge proponent for the acceptance of different political ideologies. By the 20th century, newspapers were powerhouses and became susceptible to muckraking and yellow journalism, which remains a huge part of journalism today. With radio, television and the internet all eventually coming into play, mainstream news has become a cesspit of sensationalism and warring political agendas.
I’m not saying that trustworthy news sources do not exist. After all, I am a student journalist myself.
But it’s hard for good news out there. Those who actually want to talk to journalists are usually only interested in beneficial PR. The real story dwells with those who hide from the press and leave the media to speculate and spin tales.
I’ve seen good people slammed in local papers whom I thought were unjustly targeted, and I’ve had to make my fair share of corrections. A lack of journalistic integrity escapes no news organization. I argue that mainstream and well-known news sources often have back-alley money, connections and donors to answer for. While news organizations can’t get it right all the time, we should closely examine organizations such as NBC, Fox News and CNN because they have a responsibility to tell the truth.
Even if you’ve never watched “Scandal,” many shows and movies incorporate stories where people are blackmailed and murdered for knowing the wrong thing or reporting the wrong story. It’s part of our cultural climate, and it is frequently acknowledged. Too much depends on the truth for reporting purposes, but our political, social and cultural atmosphere, which views self-preservation as an objective, keeps networks from reporting important news.
The media often forsakes truth in the name of freedom of speech. Opinion and bias are too regularly confused with fact. While maintaining the ability and the right to speak their minds, journalists and reporters need to have a sharper understanding of professionalism. Those who report news should be held to a higher standard than the average citizen when it comes to truth-telling.
In “Anchorman 2,” Ron Burgundy perfectly satirizes the essential problem of the current state of the news: “I just don’t know why we have to tell the people what they need to hear. Why can’t we just tell them what they want to hear?”
News organizations need to value why they can’t just tell people what they want to hear, and so does Brian Williams.
Seeing everyone get so upset over Brian Williams’ questionable truths makes me wonder why everyone is so surprised. In a business that has become about selling information, selling an ideology and selling people, why are watchers shocked that Brian Williams chose to sell himself and portray himself as a hero? It is most definitely not the first creation of false heroism in the news. Honestly, after studying his statements, I conclude that Brian Williams is just overdramatic. Hollywood might be a better place for him than broadcast journalism.
