NBC Still Crumbling Around Brian Williams’s Lie
According to the May 2015 issue of Vanity Fair, NBC is still trying to fix the damage caused by anchor Brian Williams, who just can’t admit that he lied about his trip in Iraq, and his refusal continues to compromise the public image and soul of NBC.
During an NBC broadcast, Williams got caught embellishing a personal story of his revolving around his coverage of Iraq in 2008. During this trip, Williams claimed that the plane he was flying in had been “forced down after being hit by an RPG.” Old crew members of this same plane, after seeing Williams’s embellishment during the live broadcast, came forward to clarify that Williams had rode on another plane that reached the site later.
Following the embellishment, Williams’s career faltered, his popularity plummeted, and he was suspended for six months. He went on to give a shallow explanation, blaming his error on “the fog of memory over 12 years. I spent much of the weekend thinking I’d gone crazy…” He would later go on to ruminate vocally to his coworkers over the possibility of having a brain tumor.
One NBC source told Vanity Fair that “He couldn’t say the words ‘I lied.’ We could not force his mouth to form the words ‘I lied.'”
Bryan Burrough, who writes for the magazine, said, “Williams’s stunning fall was only the worst of a string of embarrassing episodes that have brought NBC News, long one of the gold standards of television news, to its knees.” Even after so many months, NBC is still dealing with the fallout over Williams’s embellishment and stubbornness, and it doesn’t look like stability will return anytime soon.
