Althouse: "NBC executives were warned a year ago that Brian Williams was constantly inflating his biography."

February 7, 2015

"NBC executives were warned a year ago that Brian Williams was constantly inflating his biography."

"They were flummoxed over why the leading network anchor felt that he needed Hemingwayesque, bullets-whizzing-by flourishes to puff himself up, sometimes to the point where it was a joke in the news division."

Some surprising background, from Maureen Dowd.

By contrast, I'm utterly uninterested in the news that Williams is stepping away from his job for a few days.

76 comments:

Sam L. said...: MoDo hits the pretty boy making more money than her.; 2/7/15, 7:24 PM
chickelit said...: Dowd called Williams "hair apparent"

LOL; 2/7/15, 7:26 PM
Eric said...: So now "NBC executives" are leaking on their anchor. When is someone going to engage in an act of journalism and name names?; 2/7/15, 7:29 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: I'm utterly uninterested in the news that Williams is stepping away from his job for a few days.

Obama says to get off your high horse.; 2/7/15, 7:43 PM
Hagar said...: When Williams was declared the hair apparent ....

Do we dare think it intentional?; 2/7/15, 7:51 PM
pm317 said...: They were flummoxed over why the leading network anchor felt that he needed Hemingwayesque

Because he does not have a college degree.; 2/7/15, 7:52 PM
LYNNDH said...: Well MoDo is not quite accurate when she says that Uncle Walter called Vietnam lost because it was. Accurately, we were winning at that point and could have but sudden BIG shift in non hippy people against the war won the day.; 2/7/15, 7:54 PM
Anonymous said...: First, the Brian Williams saga.

Now, the Clintons are debating how it will affect them.

Two responses the Clintons have to any Bosnia sniper question:

1. What different does it make?
2. We have been through this already.

I love it. The War Room is 24/7 on anything that can have any impact on Take Back the White House Campaign of 2016.

This shows that Hillary is ready to be OUR POTUS.

Read:

Hillary Clinton Ally: She’s No Brian Williams
http://variety.com/2015/tv/news/hillary-clinton-ally-shes-no-brian-williams-exclusive-1201426160/; 2/7/15, 7:55 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: By contrast, I'm utterly uninterested in the news that Williams is stepping away from his job for a few days.

You know, news is not mandatory. It's not like you have to read this stuff.; 2/7/15, 8:00 PM
pm317 said...: Why did it take so long to bubble up to the surface? Why didn't this happen around 2008 or before? He was a horrible human being to then candidate Hillary. He was and has been a footlicker of Obama. He should have been taken down long ago.; 2/7/15, 8:01 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Brian is no longer the biggest star of the Williams family anyway.; 2/7/15, 8:01 PM
chillblaine said...: "Hillary is ready to be OUR POTUS."

She isn't even prepared for a campaign. It's been delayed until the summer so they can focus-group their messaging.; 2/7/15, 8:02 PM
Anonymous said...: I doubt that his hiatus will be for a few days. He's probably never coming back.

They might be hoping he can step away until it blows over, but that won't be happening.

It's going to be entertaining watching yet another collectivist progressive find out the hard way how little individual lives matter to the hive mind. Few things are more entertaining than watching a true believer get thrown under the bus, as they stare, with their doe eyes wide with shock.; 2/7/15, 8:02 PM
Hagar said...: The best comment of the TV coverage of Katrina - by all the networks - I have seen was: "Canoeing in ankle-deep waters."

This referred specifically to a clip of a film crew canoeing in the floodwaters with the anchor mournfully going on about thousands of floating corpses, etc., but then the cameraman accidentally panned over to a group of kids standing in the street nearby gawking at the camera crew with the water barely above their ankles.; 2/7/15, 8:05 PM
NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...: Hemingway lied, too.; 2/7/15, 8:06 PM
richard mcenroe said...: Brian Williams rescued a puppy fired from an Iraqi RPG at a burning helicopter over Gaza, or something.

I think that's the most current version of his story.; 2/7/15, 8:07 PM
richard mcenroe said...: John Lynch: Hemingway wrote fiction.; 2/7/15, 8:08 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: Do you think these instances are intentional? It seems hard to believe that someone in that position would willfully lie about those things. OTOH, if it's unintentional, I'd say it's an inevitable consequence of having to dramatize the news every night for decades on end. Eventually, the treacly melodrama of putting on a perma-straight-but-concerned face must wear on, unless you start imagining yourself in that role the way an actor would. And then, you believe you're a part of the story. If I had to guess, I'd suppose there's simply no way the Old News Media can keep up their repulsion with critical reporting, going instead for over-involved affectation in the nightly narratives, and not start to see themselves as part of the story.; 2/7/15, 8:12 PM
rhhardin said...: He's supposed to inflate his stories.

Everything is shaded for the soap opera audience.

Ratings. It's a business.

The best soap narrative wins.; 2/7/15, 8:15 PM
Bob Boyd said...: I don't see what the big deal is.
If you've getting your news from Brian Williams you want to be lied to.; 2/7/15, 8:20 PM
Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...: When your job is as boring as an announcer's, if you don't imagine yourself in the story every now and then you'll eventually go crazy.

Williams either intentionally or unintentionally fell into the trap of taking his own reporting of the stories way too seriously.

Again, the only anecdote is to do serious analysis along with it, like the HuffPo videovloggers or whatnot. But that's just not the delivery style of these big network boys. It's all about over-inflated annunciation, projection and identification with the story. Oh well. It's a job hazard.

Hope he enjoys what must by now be his multi-hundred million dollar nest egg. And a hot daughter getting critical success of his own. All in all not a bad position to be in in life.

And then in a few years he can audition for the most boring part in an off-Broadway play. Something more appropriate to his recent career move.; 2/7/15, 8:21 PM
traditionalguy said...: Stolen valor is a Celebrity's natural jealous reaction to competition from Military front line soldiers' real scripts.; 2/7/15, 8:27 PM
Bob Boyd said...: From Walter Cronkite to Walter Mitty over night. Boy, that'd give a fella whiplash like Bruce Jenner.; 2/7/15, 8:30 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Don't ask for whom the bell toll... ok, just this once... Brian Williams; 2/7/15, 8:37 PM
ken in tx said...: Someone still believes that Cronkite told the truth about Vietnam? I guess, because it's Dowd, I shouldn't be surprised.; 2/7/15, 8:37 PM
rhhardin said...: Bernard Goldberg characterized it as a celebrity lie. An amusing story told for the amusement.

Either that or Williams is delusionsal, he said, as the other choice.

The only thing surprising to me is that anybody thinks journalists are in the news business.

That's a schtick. It makes soap opera respectable, in the minds of their viewers.; 2/7/15, 8:39 PM
MisterBuddwing said...: This referred specifically to a clip of a film crew canoeing in the floodwaters with the anchor mournfully going on about thousands of floating corpses, etc., but then the cameraman accidentally panned over to a group of kids standing in the street nearby gawking at the camera crew with the water barely above their ankles.

You're not conflating Katrina with this memorable moment from the "Today" show, are you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgm3_jzcNm4; 2/7/15, 8:42 PM
jr565 said...: Let me theoretically defend Brian Williams. If he's in a convoy of helicopters or planes and the one in front of him is shot at and he sees the interaction he could make the point that he was involved in a firefight and all the details he mentioned would be semi truthful; 2/7/15, 8:43 PM
Anonymous said...: Trending on twitter:

#HillaryClintonIsBrianWilliams; 2/7/15, 8:45 PM
pm317 said...: @jr565, he was an hour behind!; 2/7/15, 8:47 PM
jr565 said...: I didn't hear that detail. Thought his helicopter was right behind the other helicopter. In that case - liar!; 2/7/15, 8:52 PM
campy said...: Williams picked off Russell Wilson to win the Super Bowl.; 2/7/15, 9:06 PM
David said...: His bio is about to get deflated. I blame Belichick.; 2/7/15, 9:15 PM
walter said...: "the cameraman accidentally panned over to a group of kids standing in the street nearby gawking at the camera crew with the water barely above their ankles.'

So..did they saw down the paddles?; 2/7/15, 9:24 PM
Michael K said...: "I'd say it's an inevitable consequence of having to dramatize the news every night for decades on end."

Yes, and lying is contagious, as we see once in a while.; 2/7/15, 9:31 PM
Martha said...: The "hair" in "hair apparent" was intentional. Dowd used same clever word play in her 1995 column about pretty white clone- like TV newscaster Brian Williams.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/12/10/opinion/liberties-send-in-the-clones.html; 2/7/15, 10:17 PM
SteveR said...: Yeah I agree with the opinion that he was in that position, first and foremost, to keep ratings on NBC. Not necessarily to be a great news reporter. So being a celebrity was his weakness. He is/was far from unique in that regard.; 2/7/15, 11:29 PM
wildswan said...: Brian Williams, in special interview, just told me that he and Mary Burke are computer designed clones from a UFO program to take over the earth. The computer design is why they have that strange "empty suit" appearance so common these days. "That's computer graphics for you," he moaned. The computer designed clones (CDCs) come from one pattern but the 3D printing machine can make them any desired color/gender combo. Lester Holt is another of them.

Prove I'm a robot, if you can.; 2/7/15, 11:38 PM
wildswan said...: The CDCs long to be real people - that's why they steal other people's valor and plagiarize ideas. "It's quite pitiful really" Brian said with a throb in his voice. "CDCs have a disease of the digital age - traumatic non-stress disorder - caused by failure to live one's own life."; 2/7/15, 11:50 PM
Achilles said...: chillblaine said...
"Hillary is ready to be OUR POTUS."

"She isn't even prepared for a campaign. It's been delayed until the summer so they can focus-group their messaging."

Her Sniper Lie is getting play now. Just one of the numerous reasons she wont run. She is just trying to suck up as much money as she can right now.; 2/8/15, 12:15 AM
Paul Kirchner said...: "By contrast, I'm utterly uninterested in the news that Williams is stepping away from his job for a few days. "

Oh thank God. I was beginning to think the word "uninterested" had disappeared from the English language, after Fox's premier pedant, Charles Krauthammer, said "disinterested" when he meant "uninterested the other night.; 2/8/15, 1:08 AM
furious_a said...: I don't know what's worse, Tom Brokaw calling for Williams' head or Dan Rather vouching for his integrity.; 2/8/15, 1:27 AM
furious_a said...: NPR fires Juan Williams for telling the truth. NBC grants Brian Williams temporary leave for lying on air.

It's #WhitePrivilege all the way down.; 2/8/15, 1:33 AM
chickelit said...: What if Couric is the best they can come up with as a replacement?

What a "shallow bench" press - weaklings!; 2/8/15, 1:35 AM
William said...: Every time someone says that they don't believe in Brian Williams, he loses another tuft of hair. But you can change that. If you clap real loud and say I believe in Brian Williams, his hair will grow back even more lush than before. Come on. Clap real loud and say I believe in Brian Williams and the NBC Nightly News. Keep clapping, and Al Sharpton will inflate again.; 2/8/15, 1:56 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: When I was on the porn set of "Iraq You In The Ass" for an NBC News Feature the action got pretty intense, I can tell you that now. I was watching a DVDA scene being shot, and the STDs were flying fast and furious: in fact, a stray flak of semen attached itself to my hair. It was harrowing...

Now, I am no Porn Hero, but I could experience what these young men and women were going through: the grunting, the groaning, the faraway eyes...

While I was there a young woman was being treated for carpet burns on her knees and elbows and I asked her: "Now that you've been here, is it worth it? The pains, the stretched anus: it worth it to you?"

And you know what she said? She looked me in the eye, her lips trembling from meth, and she told me: "This is who I am. This is what I do..."

Yes, ladies and gentlemen: these are the faces on the fighting front of pornography, where the battle lines of civilized society are fought. Some of these young people will never be the same: some with wounds to their bodies and diseases that will never heal, others bearing only the psychological scars...

I am not afraid to say that, while I was there, I was in the thick of the battle, knee-deep in the lube, and some of what I saw traumatized me to this day.

This is Brian Williams for NBC News.

I am Laslo.; 2/8/15, 2:59 AM
Anonymous said...: Williams is a fabulist, and not a very good one. How could he have spent all that time in Nawlins, Oct of 2005, and not known that the French Quarter never flooded after Katrina, and there couldn't have been floating bodies there? Confabulators like BW usually have been doing it for a long time, so I expect even more to come out.; 2/8/15, 3:01 AM
Ipso Fatso said...: I find it amusing that MODO is taking Williams to task for his lies and deceptions when MODO continues to use a PHOTO that is about 15 years out of date.

MODO is at her best when she is clucking over a male who has done us wrong ala Bill Clinton during the Monica days. She is our and the Upper East Side's conscious!!!!!; 2/8/15, 3:09 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: What if Couric is the best they can come up with as a replacement?

What a "shallow bench" press - weaklings!

What if Hillary is the best they can come up with as a replacement?

Talk about somebody who needs to inflate... Democrats, considerer yourselves warned.

No, that does not quite resonate like... Republicans were warned that Hillary was the best they could hope for as an opponent.

Print.; 2/8/15, 4:44 AM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: #RepublicansWereWarned; 2/8/15, 4:46 AM
Anonymous said...: I have no clue who he is. Should I be embarrassed? I consume most of my news in text form.; 2/8/15, 4:54 AM
Bill said...: If Williams displayed Hemingwayesque flourishes, Dowd didn't illuminate them. If she knows more than we do, tell us. If she's just launching RPGs at someone who will never, ever sue her for defamation, then shame on her.; 2/8/15, 5:37 AM
averagejoe said...: It's only bad if a republican does it.; 2/8/15, 5:38 AM
Wince said...: Next on NBeeC, Brian Williams' daughter will regale us with tales of how she bravely bared her breasts on "Girls". (NOT!); 2/8/15, 5:56 AM
Anonymous said...: The press used to have actual 'war correspondents'. They don't make them like Joe Galloway any more.

Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: You can't take any pictures from down there, sonny.
[Galloway gets up and is handed a rifle]
Joseph Galloway: I'm a non-combatant.
Sergeant Major Basil Plumley: Ain't no such thing today.

------------
Joe Galloway: Sir, I don't know how to tell this story.
Lt. Colonel Hal Moore: Well you have to, Joe. You tell the American people what happened here. You tell them how my troopers died.
Joe Galloway: Yes sir.; 2/8/15, 6:42 AM
Anonymous said...: Forget Brian W. Better forget GOP. It is over.

POTUS HRC

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/official-or-not-hillary-clintons-2016-campaign-is-already-well-underway/2015/02/06/a78fc358-ac8d-11e4-ad71-7b9eba0f87d6_story.html; 2/8/15, 6:44 AM
Hagar said...: @Mr. Buddwing,
Not me, but possibly the woman who posted that comment on Slate's board did.

However, I do remember real Evening News clips of TV crews canoeing around in New Orleans, so it could have happened for real.
Anyway, it was the comment that stuck in my mind; I thought it was such a good metaphor for that reporting.; 2/8/15, 6:45 AM
MisterBuddwing said...: Anyway, it was the comment that stuck in my mind; I thought it was such a good metaphor for that reporting.

A sketchy secondhand metaphor, but as long as it fits the narrative...; 2/8/15, 7:01 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: On Williams' career tombstone: "He Lied Doing What He Loved."

Although I wonder if dark shadows of suicide are crossing his thoughts and dreams, or perhaps his elevator doesn't go down that far.

I am Laslo.; 2/8/15, 7:02 AM
Hagar said...: Precisely, Mr. Buddwing. I said it was the best I had seen.; 2/8/15, 7:16 AM
Laslo Spatula said...: Advice to Brian Williams:

Do a story on Seppuku. Make yourself part of the story.

I am Laslo.; 2/8/15, 7:24 AM
Goju said...: So NBC news executives were warned a year ago, and their response was to keep whistling past the graveyard. Apparently, they were not overly concerned about the credibility of the news department - such as it is.

The truly sad part in this is that even if Williams and/or some news execs are replaced, they will just be replaced by others just like them.; 2/8/15, 7:26 AM
Phil 314 said...: Over analysis; 2/8/15, 7:44 AM
Hagar said...: We may be piling onto Brian Williams overmuch, but it is from exasperation with the whole news processing industry.; 2/8/15, 7:56 AM
RecChief said...: you answered your own question when you said "hemingwayesque"; 2/8/15, 8:08 AM
Bob Boyd said...: It has been part of Williams' job description for years to lie to his viewers to enhance the reputations of certain politicians and promote their agendas.
Perhaps he even believed the twisted logic that he was doing so in his viewers' own best interests and for the greater good.
So from his point of view, why should he not do the same for himself? And why should he not be given the same pass? Its all for the same cause, right? Enhancing the narrator enhances the narrative, doesn't it.; 2/8/15, 8:28 AM
Hagar said...: A plane goes down or a ship sinks off Sumatra, the local news pick it up and sells the story to a regional news distribution center, which sells it to New York, London, etc. New York makes up a news item with clips and dialogue and have their man in Beijing read it off his screen with the anchor in New York.

It is all a make believe world.; 2/8/15, 8:29 AM
MisterBuddwing said...: Enhancing the narrator enhances the narrative, doesn't it.

Until the narrator gets caught.; 2/8/15, 8:30 AM
Curious George said...: "By contrast, I'm utterly uninterested in the news that Williams is stepping away from his job for a few days."

One of those steps will be off the cliff. Bye bye Bri.; 2/8/15, 8:34 AM
exhelodrvr1 said...: His flummox was Gored.; 2/8/15, 8:53 AM
pm317 said...: Lefties are whining that Fox lies everyday, every show. But we know for sure that it does not lie for the corrupt Obama administration.; 2/8/15, 9:03 AM
Hagar said...: Fox News is not the greatest, but they do try to report whatever they get over the transom.

Network news in their half-hour slots, have 10 minutes of commercials, 5 minutes product placement for the pharmaceutical industry, 10 minutes more or less "human interest" clips, and finally 5 minutes of "news," and then they slant that.; 2/8/15, 9:39 AM
Hagar said...: Another thing that is odd about the network news is how often the "evergreen" "fillers" they put in to use up time, at least two networks will use the same item on the same night.; 2/8/15, 9:58 AM
chillblaine said...: Keith Olbermann, your time is come!; 2/8/15, 10:49 AM
Unknown said...: "One anchor exerted moral authority once and that was Walter Cronkite, because he risked his career to go on TV and tell the truth about the fact that we were losing the Vietnam War." Maureen's still not ready for prime time.; 2/8/15, 3:03 PM
Anonymous said...: In post-truth America, Brian Williams will date Mary Mapes, which the tabloids and evenining newscasts will follow breathlessly.; 2/8/15, 7:30 PM