The Downfall of Brian Williams
Published in La Tercera
(Chile) on 14 February 2015
by Alvaro Vargas Llosa (link to original)
(Chile) on 14 February 2015
by Alvaro Vargas Llosa (link to original)
Translated from
by Bryce Bray.
Edited by Nicholas Eckart.
The fall of this star news anchor from NBC is a metaphor for the disrepute of traditional television. It is the equivalent of toppling a political leader or discrediting a political party. It's representative of the times.
After the celebrated generation of Walter Cronkite and company (Chester Huntley, for example) whose credibility gave news broadcasts an air of being the word of the state, came the new and no less influential litter: Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings, the faces of CBS, NBC and ABC. After many years of enjoying privileged “status,” they ran up against the media revolution and everything changed.
The great, free-to-air television was obscured by cable television and, later, social networks; in the vertigo of that transformation began a closer (much closer) examination of what the sacred cows of traditional TV were saying and doing. The ratings of news broadcasts, which paralyzed the country at 6:30 in the evening for decades, went up in smoke: While a total of almost 50 million Americans watched them in 1985, nowadays a bit more than 20 million do so. And with the ratings plummeted the authority with which the anchors talked about the world to their viewers. The most famous case was that of Dan Rather, who had to resign from CBS when it was found out that the documents he had tried to discredit George W. Bush’s military service with — in the middle of the reelection campaign of 2004 — had been forged.
After the three tenors of traditional TV came the next generation, which was younger, more modern and supposedly more adapted to competition from cable and the daily harassment from social media. And here, lo and behold, Brian Williams, the prince of that new generation, with the largest audience of the three free-to-air channels, has just been suspended for six months after it was discovered that he made up an incident as a war correspondent in the turbulent Iraq situation of 2003. It turns out that he was never in a helicopter hit by a rocket launcher projectile, as he repeatedly recounted. Also being questioned now is whether a body floated past the front of his hotel when he covered the tragedy caused by Hurricane Katrina, along with many other stories that have cast him as a fearless protagonist.
Once again, the social networks were the ones that raised warning flags: In this case, the flight engineer of the helicopter that Brian Williams said he had ridden in. Upon seeing this information on NBC’s website, the soldier made the comment that it was a lie. He did not think that he would destroy Williams’ reputation just days later and leave traditional TV’s leading news broadcast without its star.
It’s healthy for journalists to be subjected to social oversight, no more or less than politicians or businessmen. For example, that oversight has been transformed into the explosion of satirical television dedicated to questioning the news. The juiciest fruit that this social perspective has given us is Jon Stewart, the comedian from Comedy Central whose news broadcast parody The Daily Show has much more credibility with people younger than 30 years of age than the news broadcasts of NBC, CBS and ABC, according to a famous survey from Time magazine a few years ago.
Journalists are not, alas, immune to scrutiny – not even the best.
After the celebrated generation of Walter Cronkite and company (Chester Huntley, for example) whose credibility gave news broadcasts an air of being the word of the state, came the new and no less influential litter: Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings, the faces of CBS, NBC and ABC. After many years of enjoying privileged “status,” they ran up against the media revolution and everything changed.
The great, free-to-air television was obscured by cable television and, later, social networks; in the vertigo of that transformation began a closer (much closer) examination of what the sacred cows of traditional TV were saying and doing. The ratings of news broadcasts, which paralyzed the country at 6:30 in the evening for decades, went up in smoke: While a total of almost 50 million Americans watched them in 1985, nowadays a bit more than 20 million do so. And with the ratings plummeted the authority with which the anchors talked about the world to their viewers. The most famous case was that of Dan Rather, who had to resign from CBS when it was found out that the documents he had tried to discredit George W. Bush’s military service with — in the middle of the reelection campaign of 2004 — had been forged.
After the three tenors of traditional TV came the next generation, which was younger, more modern and supposedly more adapted to competition from cable and the daily harassment from social media. And here, lo and behold, Brian Williams, the prince of that new generation, with the largest audience of the three free-to-air channels, has just been suspended for six months after it was discovered that he made up an incident as a war correspondent in the turbulent Iraq situation of 2003. It turns out that he was never in a helicopter hit by a rocket launcher projectile, as he repeatedly recounted. Also being questioned now is whether a body floated past the front of his hotel when he covered the tragedy caused by Hurricane Katrina, along with many other stories that have cast him as a fearless protagonist.
Once again, the social networks were the ones that raised warning flags: In this case, the flight engineer of the helicopter that Brian Williams said he had ridden in. Upon seeing this information on NBC’s website, the soldier made the comment that it was a lie. He did not think that he would destroy Williams’ reputation just days later and leave traditional TV’s leading news broadcast without its star.
It’s healthy for journalists to be subjected to social oversight, no more or less than politicians or businessmen. For example, that oversight has been transformed into the explosion of satirical television dedicated to questioning the news. The juiciest fruit that this social perspective has given us is Jon Stewart, the comedian from Comedy Central whose news broadcast parody The Daily Show has much more credibility with people younger than 30 years of age than the news broadcasts of NBC, CBS and ABC, according to a famous survey from Time magazine a few years ago.
Journalists are not, alas, immune to scrutiny – not even the best.
Phony TV newsmen like Brian Williams need CREDIBILITY in order to sell the ruling class point of view. It is that simple. How does his fib about his Iraq War helicopter adventure compare to the BIG LIE of the Iraq War: those weapons of mass destruction seen as an imminent threat to the American Way of Life ?
The next Iraq War will demand a bigger Big Lie. We must somehow succeed in terrorizing the terrorists , and making the Middle East safe for U.S. imperialism. THEY must convince the American people that state terrorism is virtuous . They must convince thousands of naive working class kids that it is glorious to die for the ONE PERCENT. One of those returning wrecks will write an updated version of Dalton Trumbo’s JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN.
( http://radicalrons.blogspot.com