While I've been known to stretch the truth a teeny tiny bit, I've
never claimed to be a reporter nor a journalist. At best I am a story
teller, and at worst I am a babbling, boring chatter box.
But regarding NBC and Brian Williams, it is safe to say that anyone
who gets caught up in their own fiction, cannot be trusted to present
the nightly news. Still, we need to remind ourselves that the NBC
Nightly News is, like all of the Corporate Media, entertainment,
first, last and always.
For my daily news I will continue to tune my radio to Democracy Now,
with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.
Carl Jarvis
On 2/5/15, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
> Home > Some Other Tall Tales Brian Williams Might Want to Apologize For
> ________________________________________
> Some Other Tall Tales Brian Williams Might Want to Apologize For
> By Jim Naureckas [1] / FAIR [2]
> February 5, 2015
> NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has apologized for falsely claiming
> (NBC, 1/30/15) that "during the invasion of Iraq.the helicopter we were
> traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG."
> "I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago," he told his
> audience on February 4 (Stars & Stripes, 2/4/15 [3]). "I don't know what
> screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with
> another."
> Now that he's cleared that up, there are some other tall tales that
> Williams
> might want to take back. Take his recounting of the aftermath of Hurricane
> Katrina in New Orleans ("Dateline NBC," 8/22/10; "Extra!," 10/10 [4]):
> You know, I've been around a lot of guns and a lot of dead bodies, and a
> lot
> of people shooting at people to make dead bodies. But you put them all
> together and you put it in the United States of America, and boy, it gets
> your attention.
> It was clear already there weren't going to be enough cops.. Everywhere we
> went, every satellite shot, every camera shot, we were at the height of the
> violence and the looting and the-all the reports of gunplay downtown. Well,
> who's bathed in the only lights in town? It was us..
> We had to ask Federal Protection Service guys with automatic weapons to
> just
> form a ring and watch our backs while we were doing Dateline NBC one
> night..
> State troopers had to cover us by aiming at the men in the street just to
> tell them, "Don't think of doing a smash and grab and killing this guy for
> the car."
> As long as he's in a confessional mood, Williams might as well admit that
> he
> didn't see "a lot of people shooting at people to make dead bodies," nor
> would people have killed him for his car if he hadn't been surrounded by
> feds-none of which appeared in his original reporting [5]. The New York
> Times (9/29/05 [6] ) cited a state medical officials' tally that "six or
> seven deaths appear to have been the result of homicides" in the wake of
> the
> storm. As the New Orleans Times Picayune (9/26/05 [7]) put it in a Pulitzer
> Prize-winning story a month after Katrina:
> As the fog of warlike conditions in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath has
> cleared, the vast majority of reported atrocities committed by evacuees
> have
> turned out to be false, or at least unsupported by any evidence, according
> to key military, law enforcement, medical and civilian officials in
> positions to know.. Four weeks after the storm, few of the widely reported
> atrocities have been backed with evidence. The piles of bodies never
> materialized, and soldiers, police officers and rescue personnel on the
> front lines say that although anarchy reigned at times and people suffered
> unimaginable indignities, most of the worst crimes reported at the time
> never happened.
> Or perhaps Williams would like to withdraw his remark (9/27/13; FAIR Action
> Alert, 9/30/13 [8]) that Iran was "suddenly claiming they don't want
> nuclear
> weapons"-and acknowledge that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ("NBC
> Nightly News," 7/28/08) had told him personally in an interview five years
> earlier: "We are not working to manufacture a bomb. We don't believe in a
> nuclear bomb." And that that was a repetition of what Ahmadinejad (NBC
> Nightly News, 9/19/06) had told him two years before that: "We have said on
> numerous occasions that our activities are for peaceful purposes.. We are
> against the atomic bomb."
> Williams could also make clear that when he relayed claims (4/2/03; Media
> Beat, 7/9/07 [9]) that the invasion of Iraq was "the cleanest war in all of
> military history," that was total nonsense [10]. Or that when he said that
> in Iraq, "the civilian toll is thought to range from 17,000 to nearly
> 20,000
> dead and beyond" (3/18/05; Action Alert, 3/21/05 [11]), the best available
> estimate (Lancet, 10/29/04) was that 100,000 civilians had already died.
> And despite what Williams claimed on March 8, 2005 ("Extra!," 6/05 [12]),
> the invasion did not actually spark a wave of democratization in the Middle
> East that made "even the harshest critics of President Bush.admit maybe
> he's
> right about freedom's march around the globe." Nor did George W. Bush
> provide "an example of presidential leadership that will be taught in
> American schools for generations to come."
> He might want to clear that up.
>
> Jim Naureckas is the editor of Extra!, FAIR's monthy magazine.
> Share on Facebook Share
> Share on Twitter Tweet
> Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@alternet.org'. [13]
> [14]
> ________________________________________
> Source URL:
> http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/some-other-tall-tales-brian-willia
> ms-might-want-apologize
> Links:
> [1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jim-naureckas
> [2] http://www.fair.org
> [3]
> http://www.stripes.com/news/us/nbc-s-brian-williams-recants-iraq-story-after
> -soldiers-protest-1.327792
> [4]
> http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/brian-williams-rehashes-katrina-violen
> ce-myth/
> [5]
> http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/sidebar-8216can8217t-we-give-this-a-re
> st8217/
> [6] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/national/nationalspecial/29crime.html
> [7] http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/7087
> [8] http://fair.org/take-action/action-alerts/nbcs-iran-bomb/
> [9] http://fair.org/media-beat-column/a-bloody-media-mirror/
> [10]
> http://www.haaretz.com/news/britain-s-iraq-war-crimes-dossier-to-be-sent-to-
> the-hague-1.111551
> [11] http://fair.org/take-action/action-alerts/counting-the-iraqi-dead/
> [12] http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/the-great-emancipator/
> [13] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Some Other Tall Tales
> Brian Williams Might Want to Apologize For
> [14] http://www.alternet.org/
> [15] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
>
> Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
> Home > Some Other Tall Tales Brian Williams Might Want to Apologize For
>
> Some Other Tall Tales Brian Williams Might Want to Apologize For
> By Jim Naureckas [1] / FAIR [2]
> February 5, 2015
> NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams has apologized for falsely claiming
> (NBC, 1/30/15) that "during the invasion of Iraq.the helicopter we were
> traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG."
> "I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago," he told his
> audience on February 4 (Stars & Stripes, 2/4/15 [3]). "I don't know what
> screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with
> another."
> Now that he's cleared that up, there are some other tall tales that
> Williams
> might want to take back. Take his recounting of the aftermath of Hurricane
> Katrina in New Orleans ("Dateline NBC," 8/22/10; "Extra!," 10/10 [4]):
> You know, I've been around a lot of guns and a lot of dead bodies, and a
> lot
> of people shooting at people to make dead bodies. But you put them all
> together and you put it in the United States of America, and boy, it gets
> your attention.
> It was clear already there weren't going to be enough cops.. Everywhere we
> went, every satellite shot, every camera shot, we were at the height of the
> violence and the looting and the-all the reports of gunplay downtown. Well,
> who's bathed in the only lights in town? It was us..
> We had to ask Federal Protection Service guys with automatic weapons to
> just
> form a ring and watch our backs while we were doing Dateline NBC one
> night..
> State troopers had to cover us by aiming at the men in the street just to
> tell them, "Don't think of doing a smash and grab and killing this guy for
> the car."
> As long as he's in a confessional mood, Williams might as well admit that
> he
> didn't see "a lot of people shooting at people to make dead bodies," nor
> would people have killed him for his car if he hadn't been surrounded by
> feds-none of which appeared in his original reporting [5]. The New York
> Times (9/29/05 [6] ) cited a state medical officials' tally that "six or
> seven deaths appear to have been the result of homicides" in the wake of
> the
> storm. As the New Orleans Times Picayune (9/26/05 [7]) put it in a Pulitzer
> Prize-winning story a month after Katrina:
> As the fog of warlike conditions in Hurricane Katrina's aftermath has
> cleared, the vast majority of reported atrocities committed by evacuees
> have
> turned out to be false, or at least unsupported by any evidence, according
> to key military, law enforcement, medical and civilian officials in
> positions to know.. Four weeks after the storm, few of the widely reported
> atrocities have been backed with evidence. The piles of bodies never
> materialized, and soldiers, police officers and rescue personnel on the
> front lines say that although anarchy reigned at times and people suffered
> unimaginable indignities, most of the worst crimes reported at the time
> never happened.
> Or perhaps Williams would like to withdraw his remark (9/27/13; FAIR Action
> Alert, 9/30/13 [8]) that Iran was "suddenly claiming they don't want
> nuclear
> weapons"-and acknowledge that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ("NBC
> Nightly News," 7/28/08) had told him personally in an interview five years
> earlier: "We are not working to manufacture a bomb. We don't believe in a
> nuclear bomb." And that that was a repetition of what Ahmadinejad (NBC
> Nightly News, 9/19/06) had told him two years before that: "We have said on
> numerous occasions that our activities are for peaceful purposes.. We are
> against the atomic bomb."
> Williams could also make clear that when he relayed claims (4/2/03; Media
> Beat, 7/9/07 [9]) that the invasion of Iraq was "the cleanest war in all of
> military history," that was total nonsense [10]. Or that when he said that
> in Iraq, "the civilian toll is thought to range from 17,000 to nearly
> 20,000
> dead and beyond" (3/18/05; Action Alert, 3/21/05 [11]), the best available
> estimate (Lancet, 10/29/04) was that 100,000 civilians had already died.
> And despite what Williams claimed on March 8, 2005 ("Extra!," 6/05 [12]),
> the invasion did not actually spark a wave of democratization in the Middle
> East that made "even the harshest critics of President Bush.admit maybe
> he's
> right about freedom's march around the globe." Nor did George W. Bush
> provide "an example of presidential leadership that will be taught in
> American schools for generations to come."
> He might want to clear that up.
> Jim Naureckas is the editor of Extra!, FAIR's monthy magazine.
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
> Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@alternet.org'. [13]
> Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[14]
>
> Source URL:
> http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/some-other-tall-tales-brian-willia
> ms-might-want-apologize
> Links:
> [1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/jim-naureckas
> [2] http://www.fair.org
> [3]
> http://www.stripes.com/news/us/nbc-s-brian-williams-recants-iraq-story-after
> -soldiers-protest-1.327792
> [4]
> http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/brian-williams-rehashes-katrina-violen
> ce-myth/
> [5]
> http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/sidebar-8216can8217t-we-give-this-a-re
> st8217/
> [6] http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/29/national/nationalspecial/29crime.html
> [7] http://www.pulitzer.org/archives/7087
> [8] http://fair.org/take-action/action-alerts/nbcs-iran-bomb/
> [9] http://fair.org/media-beat-column/a-bloody-media-mirror/
> [10]
> http://www.haaretz.com/news/britain-s-iraq-war-crimes-dossier-to-be-sent-to-
> the-hague-1.111551
> [11] http://fair.org/take-action/action-alerts/counting-the-iraqi-dead/
> [12] http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/the-great-emancipator/
> [13] mailto:corrections@alternet.org?Subject=Typo on Some Other Tall Tales
> Brian Williams Might Want to Apologize For
> [14] http://www.alternet.org/
> [15] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
>
> _______________________________________________
> Blind-Democracy mailing list
> Blind-Democracy@octothorp.org
> https://www.octothorp.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-democracy
>
No comments:
Post a Comment