Brian Williams and the Lynch Mob

NBC anchor Brian Williams told a story about an event some 12 years in the past.  His account is untrue.  He admitted this and apologized.

He didn't answer every question that has been raised about this, and now it's open season on his integrity and credibility in general.  Even though most of the noise is coming from people who appear to be doing it for their own political ends, self-aggrandizement and careers.

It's the hysteria that exercises me.  There is a lynch mob mentality that the twitterverse and 24 hour news cycle enables.

Did he deliberately lie?  Is he a bad reporter?  These may be open questions, but the lynch mob has mind up its frenzied mind.  Don't bother with the trial, we know he's guilty.

Brian Williams was on a helicopter in Iraq.  One of the pilots said it took small arms fire, other servicemen apparently aboard say it didn't.  Ahead of them was another helicopter that took significant fire and was forced down.  Williams said he was on that helicopter.  He wasn't.  But he did not say he was at the time.  The story grew over the years.  That's actually fairly normal--we tend to remember the stories we tell rather than the actual event.  It was in an unfamiliar combat situation.  The emotions stay.

What somebody says about something that happened more than a decade ago does not necessarily mean that he habitually lies about events he is covering at the moment, or that he often gets the reportage wrong.  Evidence on these possibilities has not been fully reported, just suggested, just stated as fact.

Everything about a lynch mob mentality is out of proportion. Williams' fish story about a single event is not comparable to politicians who repeatedly claim to voters that they served in Vietnam or Iraq when they never did.  There's a difference between wishful mis-remembering and systematic lies for political gain.

NBC has appointed an investigative unit to examine the evidence, and some other media organizations that might have some residual sense of responsibility to find the facts before they report them might start digging as well.

I for one will wait until there is a credible body of evidence, apart from political agendas which may well include those of former members of the military.  If that ever happens.

But as a major firestorm of a story today, this is just scary.  This is epic scapegoating so far. There are so many more important matters to attend to.