NBC anchor admits telling false story
By Travis J. Tritten, Stars and Stripes
WASHINGTON — NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams admitted Wednesday he was not aboard a helicopter hit and forced down by RPG fire during the invasion of Iraq in 2003, a false claim that has been repeated by the network for years.
Williams repeated the claim Friday during NBC’s coverage of a public tribute at a New York Rangers hockey game for a retired soldier that had provided ground security for the grounded helicopters, a game to which Williams accompanied him. In an interview with Stars and Stripes, he said he had misremembered the events and was sorry.
Brian Williams
The admission came after crew members on the 159th Aviation Regiment’s Chinook that was hit by two rockets and small arms fire told Stars and Stripes that the NBC anchor was nowhere near that aircraft or two other Chinooks flying in the formation that took fire. Williams arrived in the area about an hour later on another helicopter after the other three had made an emergency landing, the crew members said.
“I would not have chosen to make this mistake,” Williams said. “I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another.”
Williams told his Nightly News audience that the erroneous claim was part of a “bungled attempt” to thank soldiers who helped protect him in Iraq in 2003. “I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago,” Williams said. “I want to apologize.”
Idiot!
Most of those ‘news readers’ are total idiots who inject their personal politics into their news reports. Can’t trust any of them-left, right or center!
And people wonder why no-one trusts the liberal broadcast news? The liberal version of the news is a script for an agenda from the DNC propaganda department who decide what you should hear and what they feel is a story, meanwhile covering up everything in DC they can that involves this corrupt administration. This guy has told the same lie for years and NBC must have known it.
We are all curious to view some of the non-hyperpartisan trustworthy news sites you read.
The last honest place for truth and freedom? The 1st Amendment airwaves, try Reno’s KKOH 780 am for a decent line up in this area. And on a day like this a battery back up is great.
Apparently you don’t know what hyperpartisan means…
Yep Justice, KKOH 780 is just about as fair and balanced as Fox News. LOFL! Sometimes you pseudo patriots are just too cute for words.
Stolen valor. Lying libtard.
I also was a recipient of the
Congressional Medal of Dishonor,
so there. BW
Since the whole Iraq Invasion was a mistake and false, to me, this is just par for the course.
Williams wanting to lie about being under fire and in danger like Hillary did and was caught lying when neither was under fire and then repeating it is pathological lying and this joins with Blather’s firing for forgery as well and saying it wasn’t. Then we have the liberal news producers caught in the media for inventing facts like the NBC doctored 911 call in the Trayvon-Zimmerman case. These are just a few. Fraud to try to make a story true that isn’t, whether it is Ferguson, Mo or anywhere else is a crime that should be prosecuted.
“Fraud to try to make a story true that isn’t, whether it is Ferguson, Mo or anywhere else is a crime that should be prosecuted.”
Would you hold those at Fox News to the same standard Justice? Time and again they have been proven to fabricate stories as well, have they not? Or how about Rush Limbaugh? Michael Savage? Laura Ingram? Etc, etc, etc.
Throwing out vague accusations of something without a specific as a general rule doesn’t prove anything when the specific examples of Williams and the rest are clear. Try some specifics, If you have them that aren’t opinion which most of the shows you mentioned are.
Here is a survey for ya and here is an exceprt from the article Justice: ‘According to PunditFact, Fox News’ on-air talent were mostly false, false, or “pants on fire” 60% of the time.’
http://americablog.com/2014/07/punditfact-fox-news-wins-battle-false-cable-network.html
So, some other network’s anchors have been accused of lying, therefore Brian Williams’ lies are justified.
Right. Are we still in kindergarten???
Dog, that wasn’t my point and you know it. I was replying to Justice and his myopic view of the world.
When you criticize someones logic using even worse logic you make yourself look really bad. Did you intentionally use poor logic or are you just that dumb?
Big. The Just@ss view of the world is not only myopic, it is also bigoted and racist.
Throw out the race card right Rock4brains? Even though this story has nothing to do with it, It’s all you have as an empty brain and why not use the tool that elected your hero the anti-American with the Muslim name of Hussein.
Gollygeewillikers Justanass, any non-liberal politicians ever ‘misremember’ their military service or war-zone narrow escapes? Please be fair and balanced.
Here are a few more for ya Justice:
Wes Cooley-Cooley (R-OR) was elected to Congress as part of the 1994 GOP landslide, but only served one term. Why? A few reasons, actually, but the one that ultimately harmed him the most was the whopper he told about his supposed service in the Korean War. Cooley claimed he was unable to prove his service because, as a member of the Army Special Forces, his missions were secret, and that all records of his service had been destroyed in a fire. Oh yeah. He also claimed that his direct report–Sergeant Major Clifford Poppy had been killed–a claim to which the still-living Poppy responded “Tell him he’s a liar. Tell him Sergeant Poppy said that.”
Bruce Faulkner Caputo-When they fall, they fall hard…and fast. Caputo (R) hoped to unseat Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the 1982 midterms, but withdrew in March of that year after a run-in with then-Moynihan aide Tim Russert. The future Meet the Press host discovered that Caputo had claimed to have been drafted into, and served in, the Army during the Vietnam war. The reality? Caputo escaped the draft by working for the Pentagon as a civilian analyst.
Douglas Stringfellow-An oldie, but a goodie. Stringfellow (R) was elected to represent Utah in the House in 1952, appealing to voters as a World War II hero, top-secret OSS agent, POW, and (as a result of the torture suffered during his stint in German prison) a paraplegic and Silver Star awardee. Just two years later, he was outed: He was not a paraplegic and had not earned a Silver Star. What injuries he did have were not suffered in prison. And he never worked for OSS, having served as a private in the Army Air Forces. He died in obscurity in 1966 at the age of 44.
Mark Kirk-Kirk’s case is a bit more complicated. There’s no denying he’s a decorated veteran, who continues to serve as a reservist while representing Illinois in the House. But Kirk explicitly claimed, a number of times, to have been the “Navy’s Intelligence Officer of the Year” when in fact he was not. The honor was awarded to Kirk’s unit, which he led in Aviano, Italy–not to Kirk individually. The flap comes at a bad time for Kirk (R), who’s hoping to win President Obama’s Senate seat, which is being vacated by Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL). Kirk is squaring off against Alexi Giannoulias who, as a Democrat and Illinois state treasurer, should be a shoo-in, but has been under siege for his ties to Broadway Bank, which his family owns and was seized by federal regulators this year.
Joe McCarthy-AKA Tailgunner Joe. Because of his education McCarthy was given a commission, and he retired from the Marines as a captain. But he later claimed he’d enlisted as a private, flown more missions than he’d actually flown and been sent a letter of commendation by the Chief of Naval Operations. Turns out McCarthy wrote the letter himself. This all occurred before the work that made him truly famous: chief Communist witch hunter on Capitol Hill and chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investagations.
And here is the topper!
Ronald Reagan-Ronald Reagan, the most beloved man in all of conservatism repeatedly confused (or “confused”) scenes from his acting career with heroic battlefield moments…that he never participated in or witnessed. Reagan, for instance, is reported to have boasted to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Simon Wiesenthal of photographing concentration camps at the end of World War II. He even told Shamir he’d helped liberate Auschwitz. In his autobiography he wrote “by the time I got out of the Army Air Corps all I wanted to do–in common with several million other veterans–was to rest up, make love to my wife.” But as Michael Schaller wrote in his book Reckoning with Reagan, “This obscured the fact that unlike most of the “several million other veterans,” Reagan had left neither home nor wife while in military service.”
And these were politians, not newsmen.
I am not a fan of network news but always liked Brian Williams. I thought he was different but he proved he is not, he was just packaged differently.
For him to not just come out and say he lied was a shame. But who wants to gigive up that salary and status?
If a news persons lips are moving they are either lying or reading lies.
@Bigger….Did you forgot “Dubya”?
You guys are funny. Everybody expects politicians to lie. But the people who read our news are supposed to do just that: READ THE NEWS.
They aren’t supposed to try to BE the news. They aren’t supposed to make stuff up to try to look important. Some of those guys have egos WAY bigger than any alleged talent for reading a teleprompter.
Dog, personally I read my news. I don’t even own a TV. Besides, any way you cut it TV news personalities are just that, personalities! Or in other words, entertainers. And that goes for ALL of them no matter what network they work for.
Yeah, Bigs, you’re right about that.
We have a tv, but as far as news, I only watch the local news on it. The rest of the stuff you need to know is available online.
Can’t handle all the commercials on television anymore!
Justanass……still….just saying…
When was the last time a conservative news source made up a 911 tape or forged documents? Liars on the left are their normal leaders, as in you can “keep your doctor and pay less” when he knew he was lying. Their party is a fraud. The stolen valor act is one of the best laws in ages to combat anyone from lying their way into combat like Hillary and Lying Brian Williams.
So then Justice you agree that those folks I listed above should ALSO fall into that category, right? To disagree would show your bias (as if we haven’t seen it time and again), wouldn’t it? You know the old saying, ” What’s good for the goose is good for the gander as well!” So if you denounce all those I listed you MIGHT regain a iota of respect, otherwise you’re a farce.
Blank-Picture, was it you who listed a bunch of opinion talk shows from the radio with no specifics? Lying liberals are the problem here, can you think of any liar worse then Hussein? Not many can, and it is costing people this tax season a lot of money for his lies. The election results are a result of his lies as well.
Justice, you failed the test, AND your reply is what I would expect. My questions posed to you were framed in a respectful way and not only did you not answer, all you have is a rude reply. Once again you show you have no desire for a true civil conversation.
Peace out!