NBC news anchor Brian Williams in storm after admitting untruth about being under fire in Iraq
One of America’s most respected broadcasters, NBC anchorman Brian Williams, has landed in a firestor of protest after admitting on Wednesday that for years he had been telling an Iraq war story that wasn’t true .
On Thursday, his real problems started, said the New York Times.
Military veterans and commentators came forward on television and social media, challenging Williams’s claim that he had made an innocent mistake when he spoke, on several occasions, about having been in a United States military helicopter that was forced down by enemy fire in Iraq in 2003.
Some went so far as to call for his resignation, said the Times.
In his apology, on NBC Nightly News on Wednesday, Williams said that he had been on a different helicopter, behind the one that had sustained fire, and that he had inadvertently “conflated” the two.
On the NBC evening newscast on Wednesday, Williams apologised for what he described as a “bungled attempt by me to thank one special veteran and by extension our brave military men and women veterans everywhere.”
The NYT said, “The explanation earned him not only widespread criticism on radio and TV talk shows, but widespread ridicule on Twitter, under the hashtag #BrianWilliamsMisremembers.”
The host of “Fox & Friends,” Steve Doocy, called the episode “embarrassing.” On CNN’s “News Day,” Christopher Cuomo said that blaming the lie on “the fog of war” wasn’t acceptable and that the Internet would “eat him alive.” USA Today's media columnist, Rem Rieder, wrote: “It’s hard to see how Williams gets past this, and how he survives as the face of NBC News.”
It was unclear whether Williams would feel compelled to speak on the issue again, said the Times ,or if NBC would decide it needed to address the controversy.
“What is clear is that the credibility of one of America’s best-known and most trusted TV journalists has been seriously damaged,” the NYT added.
“The moral authority of the nightly network news anchor, already diminished in the modern media era, has just been dealt another blow.”
Williams, who recently scooped the world with an interview with leaker Edward Snowden in Moscow is not the first US public figure to exaggerate his or her experiences, especially when it comes to military conflict, said the NYT.
In 2008, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, running for president, acknowledged that she had misspoken when she described having to run across a tarmac to avoid sniper fire after landing in Bosnia as first lady in 1996.
Footage of the event showed Mrs. Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, calmly and safely shaking hands with local dignitaries. Mrs Clinton had to admit she misspoke.
Williams just extended his contract with NBC in December, reportedly for as much as $10m a year for as long as five years. At the time, Deborah Turness, the head of NBC News, called him one of “the most trusted journalists of our time.”
He has been anchor and managing editor of NBC’s nightly news show since 2004.