Letters to the Editor
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Self-serving rationalization by Williams.
What do you expect? He can't say anything that would reflect badly on GE.
Do you suppose the retired generals that NBC uses are getting paid by both the network and the federal government?
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so not a journalist
"...these two guys never gave what I considered to be the party line."
"...I think they are better men than that, and I believe our news division is better than that."
I can't remember the last time I cared about what a newsman "thought" or "considered" or "believed". I'm really much more interested in what the "knew" or "researched" or "dug up". Facts, ma'am.
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Warriors turned analysts...
Williams dismisses any allegations against his two buddies with this comment: "They are warriors-turned-analysts, not lobbyists or politicians." Is one of our news anchors so enamored of "warriors" that in and of itself that categorization is all he needs to accept their honor and integrity? What a bozo!
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Thanks
I like this gem:
[Congress has placed specific restrictions in its annual appropriation bills every year since 1951.] According to those restrictions, "No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress."
Seems to me that this clause has probably been violated so often since 1951 that no one even notices it's there anymore. Just more of the legal mumbo-jumbo in those complicated law thingies. Certainly no one with a Pentagon-level-IQ could be expected to have to READ and UNDERSTAND all that liberal hippy crap.
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Neither the time nor the expertise to care...
Great work again, GG. It seems to me that the mentality reflected by NBC and Williams not only is echoed by, but actually contibuted to a world view that encourages, the Joe Kleins of the world to shake off criticisms of blatantly false propaganda when it is detected by simply asserting they have "neither the time nor the expertise" to know what they were talking about.
Brian Williams is basically an empty suit mouthing other people's thoughts on the air, and the only latitude he has is adding the "personal affirmations" bucking up the "reliability" of the people NBC puts on the air to shill for the Administration's positions. Quite true, as Iokannen says, that the more meaningful quote in all this is from the NBC exec who just "isn't interested" in whether the speakers are biased. So, since all this "bias" stuff was in fact noticed in a magazine at the time, isn't Williams/NBC's current refusal to address it really just Klein having "neither the time nor the expertise to know who's right" or Jon Alter excusing media reiteration of McCain myths as justified because "we're just reporting it, if the Democrats take issue we'll report on that"?
GG's post concludes with the term "deeply corrupt" to describe the media response to the NYT recap of the shameful coverage of the Iraq war. But isn't the current media (non)response, or Williams' belated and belligerent comment, more an affirmation of "business as usual"? And it's the "business as usual" perspective that is the most troubling. If these people can't recognize corruption when they're doing it, no wonder they have little problem defending their dissemination of blatant propaganda because it's just not their problem to care about whether it's dishonest or false.
How comforting.
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brilliant take-down by Glenn
Fact after fact after example after example that Brian Williams is nothing more than a tool of the neo-con war machine.
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Impeach the source
At about the time Williams and NBC was producing these non-independent experts, two thirds of the American people supported the war. From the viewpoint of the networks the purpose of their efforts was not to contradict the logic of the reasoning behind the war, and tell two thirds of America they were wrong, when there wasn't any information to support that position, but to explain the war they, the American people agreed was justified.
NBC then became an infomercial for the war, and they hired Keith Olberman to provide contrast.
From a news business point of view, they stayed too long on the wrong side of the issue. However the polls were never concise about the moment public opinion shifted, even as the facts came in. The news is always obligated to balance the facts.
Finding and reporting the truth is only a small part of what these corporations do. Giving background, color and texture, reducing these stories to neat packages which they can provide to the American people is most of what they do.
Since just about all the information these people receive is handed them by government officials, and they do very little fact checking, or independent analysis, their moral obligation rests on portraying the trustworthiness and reliability of their sources, and not in glorifying, or deifying them to the American public.
This is the kernel of what propaganda is, and why impeachment was and is the most important thing the Congress should be doing right now. An impeachment resolution tells the American people that despite what the news is telling them, the President is neither reliable, nor trustworthy. All information flows from government sources, impeaching the source, is the only logical method of questioning the information.
If the news understood this, they would report on the Congressional dustups with the Executive branch, but Congressional Democrats made a big mistake leading up to the Iraq war, and they are still paying for that error. It was up to them to impeach the source, which the news media packages and promotes as information. Otherwise would you expect a news broadcast to spend time and money explaining the facts they are provided, and then claim the facts are really not reliable?
Mostly these matters, about independent contractors, and smarmy newscasters, are secondary to the process.
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@ kuhnigget. Yes. Vomit.
The cheerleader pro-war pundits eat up the vomit. The GOP are dogs who barf, look around without awareness or alertness, and lap up the vomit again and again. sysprog is the best for finding a biblical literate proverb?
They are neoconservatives who need to visit a republican allergist. A pro-lie democrat podiatrist may manicure the top brass's feet toes?
Sneezers.
The news from the GOP allergist is ~;
The media can still eat vomit and crap.
Huh. It's not dog shit? Keep chewing it.
The podiatrist says, 'lick barn manure?
Yes. Manure will not cause a sneeze.
Gaud bless. So, lick fecal from boots?
Yea. Boots is a ferral cat in the barn.
Eat car scat? The allergist says it ok.
NBC anchor expose. No eat vomit.