Integrity Matters

#Truth and Lies in Media#

NBC anchor, Brian Williams told the story about getting shot down in a Chinook helicopter in Iraq in 2003. While at a Rangers game last week, the announcer pointed him out to the crowd and repeated the ‘story’ to the crowd, and the video was posted on facebook.

Flight Engineer, Lance Edwards from the 159th Aviation Regiment typed a response, “Sorry dude, I don’t remember you being on my aircraft. I do remember you walking up about an hour after we landed to ask me what happened. Crew members were shot at but Williams was not on board, and not in the formation of helicopters. In fact, he arrived an hour later. The story happened, but not to Brian Williams.

Like a deer in the headlights, Williams said, “I would not have chosen to make this mistake. I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.”

But Mr. Williams, you did ‘choose’.

Conflate: to combine or blend (two things) so as to form a whole

THE WHOPPER OF A LIE
Williams claims to have flown into Baghdad with Seal Team 6.

 

 

So Williams likes to embellish, exaggerate, overstate his personal experiences. People exaggerate every now and then, no big deal. But when insert yourself into a story that never happened, you lose integrity especially when the truth is exposed. We have military members that do get shot down, they do get blown up by Improvised Explosive Devices, and they do get shot by snipers. My issue with Williams story is that he minimized everyone deployed to that hell hole. He minimized their service to him, which was to protect him. He minimized their service to our country and he made himself more important than every one of them.

According to Williams, “Our traveling NBC News team was rescued, surrounded and kept alive by an armor mechanized platoon from the U.S. Army 3rd Infantry.”

Williams now claims that he “misremembered” the event – that never happened and conflated the story but doesn’t know why.

The Silent Crew

So where is the integrity of the NBC news team? Not a single one of them has come forward since he started telling this story.

The network announced this week that Williams has been suspended. Does the punishment fit?

Not in my opinion. Brian Williams has several other personal stories that people question. Could he be a one-time liar, or is this who he is and needs attention so desperately that he will embellish anything.

Truth in Politics

Hillary Clinton made up a similar story about a trip to Bosnia. She claimed that after the plane landed, they had to run across the tarmac because of sniper fire. Clinton now refers to the incident that never happened as something she ‘misspoke’.  How do you misspeak about something that never happened?

There were no snipers at the airport. There was no danger.

 

 

Williams and Clinton serve entirely different functions, but both are in the public eye and deliberately so. Do they think that because of their ‘service’ that they are untouchable when it comes to telling the truth?

Bill Clinton couldn’t run from the Monica Lewinsky scandal, so he pointed his crooked finger at the camera and said, “I did not have sex with that woman, Miss. Lewinsky”. And that’s when we discovered that a blue dress has a lot to say about Bill Clinton’s sex life.

Mr. Clinton, blue dresses do not lie. Not even to a Congressional Committee.

 

 

Lying is a Big Deal

Unless you’re a Clinton, because people overlook their bullshit.

Brian Williams – not so much.

I don’t care what he does in his personal life, but I do care when he minimizes the service of our military in order to be Big Man.

That’s when I care about his integrity.

If character is who you are when no one else is looking, don’t expect to keep a shred of integrity when you lie to the world, and it’s on film.