NBC's Brian Williams apologizes for false Iraq story

[bonnie]

      Just exactly how do you make a "mistake" like this          NBC's Brian Williams apologizes for false Iraq story

 

NEW YORK (AP) - NBC "Nightly News" anchor Brian Williams apologized Wednesday for incorrectly claiming as recently as last week that he rode on a helicopter that came under enemy fire when he was reporting in Iraq in 2003.

Instead, Williams said, he was in another helicopter trailing a Chinook that actually was hit. He apologized on "Nightly News" for getting it wrong.

The embarrassing admission came after a story in the Stars & Stripes newspaper pointing out the discrepancy. Williams had made the claim on the air last Friday during a story about Tim Terpak, an Army officer who he had befriended when Terpak was assigned to protect the NBC crew.

Williams reported on "Nightly News" that he had gone with Terpak to a New York Rangers hockey game. They were introduced to the audience by the public address announcer, who also repeated the claim that Williams' helicopter had been hit.

"This was a bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran and by extension our brave military men and women, veterans everywhere, those who have served while I did not," Williams said on the air Wednesday. "I hope they know they have my greatest respect and also now my apology."

Stars & Stripes quoted Lance Reynolds, the flight engineer on the crew that rode with Williams, as saying that "it felt like a personal experience that someone else wanted to participate in and didn't deserve to participate in."

The newspaper said Williams' helicopter traveled about an hour behind the aircraft that actually took fire.

In a Facebook response to service members who had pointed out the mistake, Williams said that "I spent much of the weekend thinking I'd gone crazy."

NBC noted that a "Dateline NBC" story in 2003 correctly reported that Williams learned after his helicopter had landed that "the Chinook ahead of us was almost blown out of the sky." Williams said he also wrote about the incident correctly in 2008.

"Because I have no desire to fictionalize my experience ... and no need to dramatize events as they actually happened, I think the constant viewing of the video showing us inspecting the impact area - and the fog of memory over the years - made me conflate the two," Williams wrote.

"Nobody's trying to steal anyone's valor," he wrote.

Williams' helicopter and others, including the one that was hit, were grounded for three days as they waited for a sandstorm to subside.

Williams has anchored NBC's "Nightly News" since 2004, and his program consistently draws a bigger audience than his competitors, David Muir on ABC's "World News Tonight" and Scott Pelley on the "CBS Evening News."

 

[Ted Oplinger]

Now, Brian William's reporting on Katrina - which solidified his position as Tom Brokaw's successor to the NBC throne - is being called into question.

 

Dan Rather...Brian Williams. Big boys in the big networks. Caught fabricating the news in order to realize a personal agenda.

 

And are we to think their subordinates are NOT copying the example of these big names in their effort to reach the top?

 

If only Brian Williams had worked for that hated "Faux" News.....only then could righteous indignation be vented freely!

 

But NO! He worked for NBC...so the wagons must be circled, and the justifications made - even as they are now being done. But will it really save his career?

 

We live in...interesting days.

 

Blessings,

[Gregory Matthews]

Bonnie asked:

 

 Just exactly how do you make a "mistake" like this . . .

 

 

The answer is very easy.  People do it all the time.

 

Was his an honest mistake?  Did he actually make a mistake, or was it intentional?  I do not know.  I do not suggest an answer.  I will only say to Bonnie that over time our memories of events change and people do make such mistakes.

[bonnie]

Bonnie asked:

 

 

 

 

 

The answer is very easy.  People do it all the time.

 

Was his an honest mistake?  Did he actually make a mistake, or was it intentional?  I do not know.  I do not suggest an answer.  I will only say to Bonnie that over time our memories of events change and people do make such mistakes.

Perceptions can change,I agree. But most people know whether they were  in a helicopter that was hit by a RGP and forced down in an emergency landing or not. For  a civilian that would be rather memorable

When I was a young child my family was involved in a tremendous car accident with fatalities. My parents,my self  and two sisters  one brother were in the car,my older brother was not with us.  What you are suggesting is the brother not in the car would have his perceptions change to the extent he claimed he was also in the accident. Not likely

[Tom Wetmore]

Strange reactions here... A bit disconnected from reality it seems. Dan Rather's mistake cost him his job. It appears that Similar result may happen for Brian Williams. A significant number of others having similar lapse of journalistic integrity in the so called liberal media have likewise suffered career ending consequences.

In contrast those within in the Fox News and Rupert Murdock media empire seem to regular make journalistic mistakes and major ethical goofs and remain staunchly a part of the empire with hardly an knowledgement or apology.

[bonnie]

Strange reactions here... A bit disconnected fro m reality it seems. Dan Rather's mistake cost him his job. It appears that Similar result may happen for Brian Williams. A significant number of others having similar lapse of journalistic integrity in the so called liberal media have likewise suffered career ending consequences.

In contrast those within in the Fox News and Rupert Murdock media empire seem to regular make journalistic mistakes and major ethical goofs and remain staunchly a part of the empire with hardly an knowledgement or apology.

Whoever  knowingly lied should lose their job,regardless of who it is. If someone lied on Fox news as Williams did on NBC he should not be given a pass because someone from another station lied and kept their job. Mistakes by anyone is just that A MISTAKE. A deliberate lie to make enhance your own standing is quite another. From all that is now coming out and others have known for sometime it seems Williams has made this mistake more than once

[LifeHiscost]

Perceptions can change,I agree. But most people know whether they were  in a helicopter that was hit by a RGP and forced down in an emergency landing or not. For  a civilian that would be rather memorable

When I was a young child my family was involved in a tremendous car accident with fatalities. My parents,my self  and two sisters  one brother were in the car,my older brother was not with us.  What you are suggesting is the brother not in the car would have his perceptions change to the extent he claimed he was also in the accident. Not likely

I'm of the opinion it is not only possible but even very likely re: Brian Williams description, basing my decision on about 5-6 major auto accidents over my own life in which I mistook identifying the one driving (either myself or another party) when relating the story at a later time of a few years.

 

God is Love!  Jesus saves! 

[phkrause]

Exactly LHC

[bonnie]

I'm of the opinion it is not only possible but even very likely re: Brian Williams description, basing my decision on about 5-6 major auto accidents over my own life in which I mistook identifying the one driving (either myself or another party) when relating the story at a later time of a few years.

 

God is Love!  Jesus saves! 

If you failed to remember the driver in 5 0r 6 auto accidents perhaps the problem is you shouldn't be driving if you are really that unaware.

If a very experienced man as Brian Williams doesn't have a clue as to what really happened perhaps he shouldn't be in the position he was.

Prior to our marriage my husband a Catholic at the time didn't see anything wrong with alcohol. Many times drank to excess and had more than his share of accidents. Under the influence of more than a moderate amount of alcohol he knows perfectly well who was driving and who was a passenger or driving the other vehicle

[bonnie]

Actually, big brother may have heard the story and assumed he was there. He could easily have "remembered" the details of the accident even more vividly than those who were there. And even when confronted with the real facts of the situation, he would still think he was there. This is how false memories occur. This has also been studied by Elizabeth Loftus at the University of Washington. False memories became a subject of intense interest during the years of some major trials involving sex abuse and even murder.

 

http://faculty.washington.edu/eloftus/Articles/sciam.htm

Big brother has heard the story many times.He has never remembered being there. He did grapple with survivor's guilt for a long time,believing had he been there maybe one of the sisters would have lived.

.Brian Williams is a seasoned professional and if he is dealing with 'false memories" he best find a different profession. If he is no more reliable in what he reports he has no business in that profession. Odd how his "false memories" in this and other stories now being questioned only deal with bringing attention to himself or elevating himself 

[bonnie]

My husband transposes memories and stories he has heard sometimes seem to him that he was involved. This is a condition caused by several strokes.

[bonnie]

Most false memory situations I have read up on usually involved events that happened in childhood and "remembered" as adults. These often happen with the help of a therapist. Rare cases have been discussed in literature and popular writings of adults having false memories but not in the way of Mr Williams. Methods of "helping" someone to remember falsely are interesting in the way it is done, but also tragic in making someone believe they went thru horrific events when they didn't. I was not trying to imply that Mr Williams could have remembered falsely that the events he went through occurred.

 

Sorry for your brother and the feelings he went through. Survivor's guilt can be rough also.

Seems Williams has a pattern of problems with his memory of "exciting" events he was involved in

Meanwhile, another instance emerged of Williams appearing to embellish a wartime reporting experience.

Williams traveled to Israel in July 2006 to cover that country’s military campaign against Hezbollah. The anchor reported on MSNBC that he flew in a Black Hawk helicopter with Israeli military officials at a height of 1,500 feet. He said he saw a trail of smoke and dust where Katyusha rockets had landed in the uninhabited Israeli countryside. Then, he said he witnessed two rockets being launched toward Israel some six miles from where he was flying, according to the network transcript.

In an interview at Fairfield University more than a year later, Williams said that Katyusha rockets passed “just underneath the helicopter I was riding in,” according to a film of the interview, described in The Washington Post on Monday.

Williams was even more descriptive in an August 2006 appearance with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.”

“Here’s a view of rockets I have never seen, passing underneath us, 1,500 feet beneath us,” Williams said. “And we’ve got the gunner doors on this thing, and I’m saying to the general, some four-star, ‘It wouldn’t take much for them to adjust the aim and try to do a ring toss right through our open doors, would it?'”

[LifeHiscost]

If you failed to remember the driver in 5 0r 6 auto accidents perhaps the problem is you shouldn't be driving if you are really that unaware.

 Agreed had you restated the description more accurately.

 

Typical response from any person who makes a decision based upon a comparably miniscule amount of 2nd party descriptions who normally considers themself better qualified to assess facts involved by others directly.

 

God is Willing to Teach Others—The idea that one man’s mind and judgment can mold and direct important interests, and that he can be regarded as a voice for the people, is a great evil, and has, and still continues to endanger the one who is placed in a position of responsibility, and those also who cooperate with him. God has not given to any one man all the wisdom, and wisdom will not die with him. Those placed in positions of trust should modestly regard the opinions of others as worthy of respect and likely to be as correct as their own. They should remember that God has made other men just as valuable as they are, and that God is willing to teach and guide these men.—Manuscript 55, 1897 (June 3, 1897, Development of Workers). {ChL 36.4} 

 

I'm supposing that advice is gender inclusive.

 

God is Love!  Jesus saves! 

[bonnie]

 Agreed had you restated the description more accurately.

 

Typical response from any person who makes a decision based upon a comparably miniscule amount of 2nd party descriptions who normally considers themself better qualified to assess facts involved by others directly.

 

 

 

 

I'm supposing that advice is gender inclusive.

 

God is Love!  Jesus saves! 

 

 Agreed had you restated the description more accurately.

 

Typical response from any person who makes a decision based upon a comparably miniscule amount of 2nd party descriptions who normally considers themself better qualified to assess facts involved by others directly.

 

 

 

 

I'm supposing that advice is gender inclusive.

 

God is Love!  Jesus saves! 

I'm of the opinion it is not only possible but even very likely re: Brian Williams description, basing my decision on about 5-6 major auto accidents over my own life in which I mistook identifying the one driving (either myself or another party) when relating the story at a later time of a few years.

 

 

If you were the driver in some of the 5-6 accidents and you were/are confused on that a few years later you should not have been driving.

Either way, driving/passenger or witness you have no business driving if you are so unaware.

Even so,with Brian Williams,it is his job/profession to be accurate when presenting national news.

 

miniscule amount of 2nd party descriptions. 

The account of Brian Williams was not a second party description,it was a eyewitness account

[phkrause]

Turns out someone else has a problem with the truth in war issue:

 

http://patriotupdate.com/2015/02/brian-williams-wasnt-one-lying-fake-war-stories-remember-hillary-clintons-dodging-sniper-fire-bosnia-tale/

Interesting how they left this out of that article:

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/158426

[bonnie]

Interesting how they left this out of that article:

http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/158426

Memos allegedly from Jerry Killian

Main article: Killian documents

The "Killian documents" were initially claimed by CBS to have come from the "personal files" of the late Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, Bush's squadron commander during Bush's Air National Guard service.^[44] They describe preferential treatment during Bush's service, including pressure on Killian to "sugar coat" an annual officer rating report for the then 1st Lt. Bush. CBS aired the story on September 8, 2004, amid more releases of Bush's official records by the Department of Defense, including one just the day before as the result of a FOIA lawsuit by the Associated Press.^[45]

The Killian documents are widely considered to be fake. Starting with a Free Republic web posting by Harry MacDougald, a conservative Republican lawyer posting under the blogger name, "Buckhead." MacDougald and multiple fellow bloggers pointed out that the formatting shown in the documents used proportional fonts that did not come into common use until the mid-to-late 1990s and alleged that the documents were therefore likely forgeries.^[46][47]

The forgery allegations subsequently came to the attention of the mainstream media, especially after experts also questioned the documents' authenticity and lack of a chain of custody.^[48][49][50] The original documents have never been submitted for authentication. The man who delivered the copies, Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, a former officer in the Texas Army National Guard and outspoken Bush critic, claimed that he burned the originals. Burkett admitted lying to CBS and USA Today about where he had obtained the papers and eventually expressed doubts of his own about their authenticity.^[51]

CBS and Dan Rather initially defended the documents and the report,^[52] but on September 20, 2004 – less than two months before Election Day, CBS News stated that it had been "misled" and that it could not authenticate the documents and should not have used them.^[53] A later 60 Minutes broadcast an interview with Marian Carr Knox, secretary to Killian at the time, who stated that she "didn't type these memos", although she stated she had typed memos of similar content.^[54] CBS then formed an independent panel headed by former U.S. Attorney General Dick Thornburgh and retired Associated Press president Louis D. Boccardi to investigate the story and the handling of the Killian memos.^[55] The final report of the panel, while not addressing the authenticity of the documents, faulted many of the decisions made in developing the story, and producer Mary Mapes along with three others were forced to resign from CBS News.^[56]

Prior to the panel report being completed, Rather announced the date of his retirement,^[57] left "60 Minutes Wednesday", stepped down as anchor on March 9, 2006, and then left CBS altogether on June 20, 2006.^[58] The CBS news show that had aired the memos, "60 Minutes Wednesday" was canceled on May 18, 2005, allegedly due to poor ratings and not because of the memos broadcast.^[59]

In September 2007, Rather sued CBS and its former parent company, Viacom, for US$70 million, claiming that he had been made a "scapegoat" over the memos story.^[60] His legal fight with CBS ended in January 2010 when the New York State Supreme Court declined to hear his motion to reinstate his lawsuit.^[61]

 

 

1. ^ Jump up to:^a b c

[bonnie]

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2010/05/blumenthal_reagan_and_the_big.html

Now a claim about President Ronald Reagan has resurfaced in connection with senate candidate Richard Blumenthal's misstatements about his military service. After the Blumenthal story broke, left-leaning pundits immediately began reminding us that Reagan had falsely claimed to have filmed the liberation of German concentration camps at the end of World War II. Alan Colmes, for example, writing about Blumenthal's problems, adds, "After all, it wasn't fatal when Ronald Reagan fudged his military service a bit," and quotes Al Hunt from the Wall Street Journal:

Like Bush's fake turkey, this story has been so frequently repeated that it is now widely accepted. But what is the evidence that Reagan made such a claim? As it turns out, the most that can be said is that on two occasions, Reagan told a genuinely revealing anecdote involving those death camp films, and two reporters (both clearly ignorant of Reagan's life story) incorrectly inferred that Reagan was the filmmaker. I have found nothing in the public record to show that the reporters' misunderstandings were based directly on a statement by Reagan himself.

The trail of this story inevitably leads back to Louis Cannon's 1991 biographyPresident Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime. Cannon has a well-deserved reputation for objectivity -- indeed, he has defended Reagan against other bogus accusations. Despite some initial skepticism, however, he accepts the claim that Reagan invented his participation in the filmmaking. Cannon first describes an article in Near East Report that summarizes a Ma'ariv account of the meeting with Shamir:

Setting aside for a moment the accuracy of Cannon's description, the key element of Reagan's story is clearly the second part about saving a copy of the footage to show to future deniers. (According to James Baker, Reagan had been disturbed by reports of people who denied the horrors of World War I and did not want that repeated.) Surely it is this that Shamir would have found (in Cannon's words) "moving ... and had related it to the cabinet as evidence of the president's support of Israel."

Cannon's description of the Near East Report article is misleading, however. Here is the relevant section (dated February 10, 1984):

Ma'ariv reports that President Reagan told Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir -- during Shamir's November visit here -- that the roots of his concern for Israel can be traced to World War II. During the war, Reagan served as a photographer in a unit assigned to film the Nazi death camps. According to Ma'ariv, Reagan told Shamir that he saved one of the death camp films for himself. He believed the day would come when people would question whether the extermination of six million Jews had actually place.

The plain reading of that second sentence is that it is an interpolation by the reporter of background information, albeit factually inaccurate. It is the only sentence not clearly linked to the Ma'ariv article. This does not rule out the possibility that Reagan did say he filmed the camps, but the text fails to justify that assumption. For all we know, Reagan said nothing about making the film, and the reporter made an erroneous inference. Reporters occasionally get facts wrong, and in this case, the original reporter was an Israeli, presumably not a native English speaker and not familiar with the president's life story.

A similar confusion surrounds Cannon's account of a meeting among President Reagan, Simon Wiesenthal, and Rabbi Marvin Hier. Once again, there is an intermediary, a Washington Post reporter. There is no direct quote of Reagan claiming to have shot the footage, and again it is clear that it was Reagan's story about saving the footage and subsequently showing it to skeptics that profoundly impressed Wiesenthal and Hier. We are told that the reporter, Joanne Omang, asked Cannon when Reagan had photographed the death camps, but we are not told what prompted her question. She too may have just assumed Reagan shot the footage and then realized she was mistaken when Cannon explained that Reagan had never left the country during the war. Indeed, Omang's article on the meeting makes no mention of any such claim by Reagan.

Cannon acknowledges the flimsiness of the evidence, but he says that he became convinced when another reporter "confirm[ed] the accuracy of the original Ma'ariv report with Dan Meridor, the Israeli cabinet secretary." Surpisingly, Cannon -- perhaps because he is skeptical of all parts of the story -- is imprecise about what Meridor said. Did he confirm every detail of the Ma'ariv story (whatever those were), or just that Reagan told Shamir he saved a copy of the film and subsequently showed it to skeptics? 

Finally, regarding Cannon's skepticism about all the elements of Reagan's story, the president's youngest son Ron has a story of his own. As quoted by Bill Mann:

"When I was 12," Reagan recalled, "My father said he had something to show me. He said, "I think you're old enough to see the worst that humans can do to one another.'" Reagan said his Dad reached into a closet, found a dusty old film canister, and put the celluloid contents on the family film projector.  "It was raw, unedited newsreel film of the liberation of Auschwitz," Reagan Jr. said, recalling his shock and horror as a boy seeing for the first time the stacked-up bodies and the walking dead.

Unless Ron Reagan made this up, it appears that the essential part of his father's story was accurate. The unanswered question is whether the president fabricated his presence at the camps. While it may seem unlikely that two reporters would make a similar error, it is even harder to believe that had Reagan made such a claim; no journalist could have obtained direct confirmation from a participant at either meeting or at least produce a specific confirmation of Reagan's words.

The lie of Bush's plastic turkey gained traction because it detracted from the positive story of Bush's surprise visit to the troops in Iraq on Thanksgiving 2003. The story of Reagan inventing his role in the filming of the death camps is not as provably false, but its popularity despite the paucity of evidence seems to serve the same purpose: An anecdote that puts President Reagan in a positive light is pushed aside by a dubious story that makes him look foolish. Sadly, in both cases, the media has aided and abetted the misinformation.

 

 

[joeb]

Bonnie asked:

 

 

 

 

 

The answer is very easy.  People do it all the time.

 

Was his an honest mistake?  Did he actually make a mistake, or was it intentional?  I do not know.  I do not suggest an answer.  I will only say to Bonnie that over time our memories of events change and people do make such mistakes.

Oh, yeah.  It's really easy to "misremember" that you are fired on by an RPG.  Brian Williams has a history of "misremembering".  He also saw bodies floating in water where there was no water.  One incident is a maybe, multiple incidents in which he makes himself much more dramatic than the actual truth are dishonesty

[bonnie]

Oh, yeah.  It's really easy to "misremember" that you are fired on by an RPG.  Brian Williams has a history of "misremembering".  He also saw bodies floating in water where there was no water.  One incident is a maybe, multiple incidents in which he makes himself much more dramatic than the actual truth are dishonesty

I used to kind of like Brian Williams. Have not been able to stomach watching or listening to this disgusting father for sometime. HIs lies are actually the least of who this man really is. "Unmitigated joy and everyone has to remember it is acting and no animals were harmed and ideally no one gets hurt"over something that would have made most parents heartsick was enough for me. Especially the "Unmitigated joy"