A recent Gallup poll found that viewers across America “continue to register record-low trust in the mass media,” and for the third straight year, more people have “no trust at all” in the media than “trust it a great deal or fair amount.” Given this consensus of distrust, why, then, would a journalist who fabricated a story about being shot down in a helicopter by a rocket-propelled grenade while on assignment in Iraq in 2003 be selected to lead Amazon Prime Video’s new 2024 election coverage programming?
Brian Williams, heroic war zone and RPG-blast-surviving journalist, was chosen as the lead anchor of the streaming service’s debut into presidential election coverage. For those who might have forgotten, in 2015, at a New York Rangers hockey game, Williams was thanking a retired soldier for protecting him and his camera crew in Iraq in 2003 when (Williams claimed) the helicopter they were riding on was forced to do an emergency landing because it came under enemy fire.
“The story actually started with a terrible moment a dozen years back during the invasion of Iraq when the helicopter we were traveling in was forced down after being hit by an RPG,” Williams said during the tribute.
According to Vox, Williams told the story several times throughout his career. However, the incident never happened. The NBC Nightly News anchor made the entire thing up. He later admitted to the lie and was suspended from the network, removed from being an anchor, and ultimately exiled to MSNBC — a network where dishonest and deceitful journalists apparently get rewarded with lucrative salaries and talk shows despite their sins.
And now, Williams gets rewarded again. In the much-maligned era of “fake news,” perhaps the original fake news kingpin himself is being tasked with heading yet another network’s political coverage. It raises the question as to what exactly one must do to lose credibility and why people (people who have already reached the zenith of their field and have no reason to lie) who embellish their resumes to include fictitious tales that resemble the plot of a Rambo movie keep getting multiple opportunities.
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What is the point of this? Was there no other journalist in the country who Amazon Prime Video felt could read words from a teleprompter? No one else who could read the percentages of votes off a screen? Do executives at the streaming service feel there is a market for former MSNBC reporters who struggle to tell the truth? Do they believe there is a national yearning for journalists who make up fantastical tales of succumbing to enemy fire while working in war zones? How do these people continue to fail upward?
The fact that Williams is getting another shot at this is comical. It is not as if he made some minor mistake or unknowingly provided details of an event incorrectly. He made up a fictitious story in his head and presented it to an audience as if it were real. At a time when trust in the media has hit record lows, the brilliant minds behind Amazon Prime Video’s election coverage should maybe try not hiring a newscaster synonymous with dishonesty and deception.