More than forty years ago, Washington Post journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein taught us to “follow the money.” Those words of wisdom certainly apply to the current troubles that NBC News anchor Brian Williams is having. It is clear that Williams broke journalistic ethics, and some sort of punishment, including financial sacrifice on his part, is appropriate.

But what do we learn if we follow NBC’s money? Williams has been extremely profitable for the network. For the week ending on Friday, Feb. 6 (Williams’ last night), NBC had 10,177,000 viewers; ABC had 9,460,000, and CBS had 7,853,000.

But at the same time as Williams has been cashing in with his $10 million per annum salary, so has NBC. Often,the network uses the very techniques for which Williams is now being criticized. It embellishes its descriptions of all of its shows. Their entertainment division coined the phrase, “Can’t Miss TV.” Really, you can’t miss it, or what? They have not yet applied that tag line to their Nightly News, but there is a certain irony in NBC’s most recent tag line about Williams and Nightly News, “He’s been there. He’ll be there.” Here is one of the most recent promotion pieces for the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.

As the stories of Brian Williams’ exaggerations and falsehoods multiply, it is important to keep in mind that NBC has not been an innocent bystander. Like the other broadcast networks, it promotes its newscasts with the “cult of personality.” Each network says that whoever is sitting in the anchor seat is the paragon of virtue and a rock of stability. When Williams began crossing into the entertainment world with frequent appearances on David Letterman and Jon Stewart, the network did not say, “No, you can’t do that; it’s unbecoming for a trusted newscaster.” No, NBC laughed all the way to the bank, riding on the back of Williams. The more face time he had on TV, especially time when he was being funny and boosting his image, the more opportunity there was for NBC to cash in on the Williams brand.

If NBC was really so concerned about the integrity of what it puts on the air, why does it allow its affiliates to broadcast the shameful cacophony of distorting political ads that are run by candidates in each election cycle? Why does it promote its own programming in the body of its newscasts? Why does it constantly blur the line between news and entertainment on the Today Show?

Yes, the six month suspension without pay for Brian Williams may be appropriate. As more questionable journalism by Williams is revealed, perhaps his contract should be terminated. NBC is Williams’ employer and it has the right to fire him. But isn’t NBC also a co-conspirator in the mis-deeds? Isn’t NBC an un-indicted co-conspirator?

NBC has repeatedly said it is examining what Williams did. But the network has not said a word about examining its own behavior. This is not unusual behavior for an employer or anyone who is higher in the pecking order. It certainly would be refreshing if NBC engaged in a little introspection, considered an apology of its own, and moved to bring more integrity to its own standards and practices.

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Brian Williams may be about to lose his position as anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News. It is now clear that he has deviated from the truth in recalling what happened to him in a 2003 helicopter incident in Iraq, and he may well have told outright falsehoods while reporting on-site about Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Once the story became public, Williams, to his credit, acknowledged that he made mistakes. He apologized for what he had done to NBC News and his largely loyal audience. It seemed as if the NBC emperor had no clothes. Williams wisely chose to temporarily remove himself from the tempest by unilaterally taking a few days, or perhaps longer, off from behind the anchor desk.

Let me state up front that I am not a fan of Brian Williams. The gestalt of NBC News repels me with its blaring music, as opposed to the somewhat soothing Aaron Copeland piece that introduces and closes CBS Evening News.

Williams has done some thoughtful reporting and is certainly skilled enough to do what is probably the most difficult part of being a television anchor, covering a crisis that is breaking and juggling the information that is coming in from multiple reporters and producers. But even if every word that Williams uttered was truthful and accurate, he would still fall short of the standards of “America’s most trusted journalist,” the moniker once given to Walter Cronkite, the consummate professional.

Williams looks to me like a newsman the way actor Jon Hamm would. He is Hollywood handsome, meaning that he has a “pretty face,” but does not seem to have lived a life of stress and endurance, the kind that really weathers you. Growing up, Brian Williams might have had some experiences similar to those of Marilyn Monroe. He just never could be treated as “one of the guys.” He must have been revered for his looks and the grace with which he carried himself. He was likely seen by many others as America’s model person, but unfortunately he was preserved before he even matured. He became so statuesque that some might conclude that he has a glass jaw and it would take only a feather to blow him over.

Williams never was, nor could he ever be, an ordinary guy. He looks about as real in military garb as Michael Dukakis. He doesn’t have the “in the field” credibility that his colleague Richard Engel has, or CBS’ Charlie D’Agata, or Holly Williams. If Williams is to be a network anchor, he needs to be a “stay at home” anchor who does not venture into places like Iraq or hurricane-stricken New Orleans.

His difficulties in relating to ordinary men and women are compounded by what NBC does to him. They hype him as being the paragon of truth and virtue. In their minds, he is the gold standard of journalism. Such a contention is unfair to both the journalist and the viewers. It not only is not true, it cannot be true. Journalists need to earn and retain our trust. They are most believed when they are modest and low-key in their presentations. NBC News makes Williams be more bombastic than he is naturally inclined to be, so he becomes a caricature of himself. Perhaps unwittingly, NBC has been setting Williams up for the big fall even before he became Nightly News anchor.

With regard to Williams’ misstatements, it is important to keep in mind that all of us are inclined to mis-remember occurrences in which we have been involved. Sometimes near-traumatic events are mulled over and rehashed in our dreams to the point that it becomes difficult to tell what really happened.

Williams, like most of us, needs someone to help him keep his bearings straight. He cannot do it all alone. He is not Superman. It is wise for him to take some time to reflect. He might also want to seek professional counseling.

The more understanding he can gain about how different he is from the trusted voices of the past such as Walter Cronkite or Chet Huntley, the better he will be personally and professionally.

Williams is walking on a precipice where one more misstep might be his last. Because his reporting has generally been fair for someone working in the mainstream and because his employer has exacerbated his vulnerabilities by hyping the opposite, he deserves another chance. If he is given it and he takes it, both he and his viewing public will be better off.

The post In partial–and only partial–defense of Brian Williams appeared first on Occasional Planet.

An internal argument among progressives is whether MSNBC is an honest, objective source of broadcast news or whether it is just a liberal foil to Fox News. Somewhat like The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, MSNBC gives us information about conservative travails and hypocrisy that we would not receive from the mainstream press. Regardless of which side of this argument you come down, there still is a special significance when clearly progressive arguments are made in the mainstream press. One of the best sources for this is the David Letterman Show on CBS.

On Wednesday, May 16, Letterman had NBC news anchor Brian Williams as his only talk guest (a rare gesture). Letterman asked him some “inside television news” questions at first, but then got on to issues such as the Bush taxes and Afghanistan. Below is the interview, which unfortunately cannot easily cut into “Brian Williams’s segments” and rather includes the entire show. But it’s funny, so bear with it. Among the highlights of the remarks are:

Praising Obama

Letterman: The day after the nine eleven attack, the number one priority in America – George Bush said that he wanted to get bin Laden, but instead he went into Iraq and Vice-President Cheney suggested. Halliburton was getting a little pay-off here.

Bin Laden is finally gunned down by Barack Obama, showing great courage and great intelligence. What more do you want to lead your country than that kind of courage and that kind of intelligence? [Considerable clapping; no booing from audience.]

Williams: While it’s true that two wars post 9-11 had our attention occupied elsewhere than the country, and while it’s true that every interview that I ever conducted with military officer whether they had stars or colonels and sergeants, on his uniform, they said, “We would like to kill him; we would like to find him, but it’s not our priority right now. We now find out interviewing everyone in that picture that of course it was a priority, but it was a new priority when President Obama came into office.

Letterman: It makes me angry that we can’t give this president anything. …. What more do we want this man to do for us, honest to God. And there you have it.

Letterman: What is at the core of those people disagree with gay marriage that clearly has the support of the administration?

Williams: Those opposed to gay marriage….. I can’t speak to them; a lot of them have religious objections. In Romney’s commencement speech at Liberty University he said that marriage should be between a man and a woman.

Letterman: The Biblical references they have a problem with.

Praising Mainstream Press

Letterman: I see that our friends at CNN are having some ratings problems. I postulated that this means that people don’t want objective news the way you, Scott Pelley, or Diane Sawyer give it. They want the new that makes sense the way they see it so you have MSNBC, Fox, and so forth. They don’t want it objective.

Click image to play

Click image to play

David Letterman is not a political pundit nor does he pretend to be one.  But he is rational and has a sense of fairness.  Brian Williams played it straight which allowed Letterman to make strong arguments in favor of Obama, and at times a more liberal agenda than the president has.

Letterman’s audience is much greater than that of MSNBC or Fox.  More than once, he has presented the American public with the kind of sensitivity and logic that is needed.  Kudos to him; I only wish that his approach became contagious to others in the mainstream media.

The post When reason comes from the mainstream media, it means so much more appeared first on Occasional Planet.

My biggest concern with presidential debates, not only in 2011-12, but for at least the last eight years, has been the frivolity of many of the questions to the candidates from the panelists. I expected much of the same on Monday, Jan. 23, 2012 with the NBC – Tampa Tribune – National Journal debate. When I saw Brian Williams as the primary questioner, I became even more leery because he is often a screamer (compare the volume of his newscast to that of Scott Pelley on CBS). Additionally, he can be very frivolous  as we see every several months when he appears on Jon Stewart and they romanticize and fictionalize about their lives in New Jersey.

But Williams moderated the debate in a way that gave it the proper gravitas and thoughtfulness that has been missing in most recent debates. As described by Paul Begala in the Daily Beast,

Brian Williams gave Romney and his competitors a chance to discuss issues without the cheering, jeering, booing, embarrassing crowds we have seen in prior GOP debates. Without the roar of the crowd, Newt was much less effective. Like all bullies, he feeds off the mob. But tonight, at the urging of Williams, the crowd was mute and Gingrich’s faux fury, so effective in prior debates, never materialized.

Williams pursued; didn’t attack. He was inquisitive rather than belligerent. He recognized that the debate was about the candidates; not about him. He was flexible enough to bend or break the rules of the debate when light, as opposed to heat, was being emitted from the give and take among the candidates.

Sam Stein of the Huffington Post, offered further insight:

In past forums, the attacks would have elicited howls, cheers, or even boos — disrupting the flow and giving Gingrich the type of energy and break in discussion to jump in. On Monday, Gingrich was left flailing.

Following the debate, a Gingrich spokesperson offered the following gem:

“I also think the prohibition for no clapping was kind of un-American. What if you went to a baseball game and they were like, ‘No cheering after a big play,'” asked Gingrich’s top spokesman R.C. Hammond.

I wonder if Gingrich would apply the same standard to a religious service. He is very proud of what he calls the forgiveness that he has received for what we might politely call overlapping relationships (and is that happening again?). If Gingrich’s priest said something with which he or others in the congregation disagreed, would he use the baseball game analogy and endorse booing. Maybe he gets confused because there is a certain similarity in the way  umpires and priests dress.

Stein summarizes the “quiet and respectful audience:”

But it was nothing like the earlier forums. For weeks, political observers have been marveling over the impact that these debates and their raucous audiences have had on the course of the Republican primary race.

In addition the guidelines for civility from the audience, the format for the journalists was helpful in elevating the dialogue. Williams asked all the questions during the first hour and then the last fifteen minutes. This structure allowed him to follow-up when necessary and move on when desirable. There were not dueling egos among network correspondents.

At the beginning of the second hour, he turned the questioning over to two serious print journalists. One was a reporter from the Tampa Tribune, appropriately named Adam Smith (noted by Brian Williams as fitting for a Republican debate). He has covered local politics for ten years and was very knowledgeable about issues unique to Florida.

The other was Beth Reinhard from the National Journal. She is particularly familiar with south Florida, having written for the Miami Herald for eleven years and the Palm Beach Post prior to that.

Several things were remarkable about Smith and Reinhard. First, they didn’t play to the audience (not that Williams did this night, but it has become somewhat de rigueur in other debates). Second, they focused on issues that would be of particular importance to Florida voters such as a post-Castro Cuba and protection from environmental mishaps such as the Deep Horizon. Third, they gave equal time to Rick Santorum and Ron Paul to speak so that it was not just another chapter of Mitt-Newt-gate.

Perhaps most importantly, Williams, Smith, and Reinhard all asked their own questions. There were none of the “what’s in it for me” questions from the audience or the frivolity from Facebook or Twitter.

Initial reviews of Monday’s debate are mixed. Some appreciated the more cerebral and thoughtful approach; others missed the consequences of audience participation. Regardless of what happens in the future, a model has been set for serious and low-keyed discussion. It certainly is my hope that similar formats take place as we move deeper into the election season.

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