The Media Doesn’t Deserve to Criticize Brian Williams

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen liberals eat their own with the voracious appetite they’ve demonstrated over this Brian Williams fiasco. Every mainstream news personality with an outlet has used this opportunity to cut Williams down to size. And to be sure, he deserves every ounce of the venom. Even if we ignore some of the other dubious tales that have come to light – his Katrina anecdote among the most questionable – his account of the Iraq helicopter incident alone is enough to sink his career.

But the attack on Williams from inside the industry is almost as rich as the way baseball players turned on Jose Canseco after his steroid scandal. Before long, Canseco burned his bridges for good with a tell-all, throwing a number of his former teammates and rivals under the bus. And it wasn’t long before investigations proved that Canseco was far from the only Major League superstar using performance-enhancing drugs. If Williams winds up blackballed from the news industry over this, he might well be tempted to write a book of his own. And if he’s inclined to take revenge, these media personalities jumping on the bandwagon now might wish they had kept their mouths shut.

Significant Deceptions

Williams may be guilty of lying to make himself look more adventurous and brave than he really is, but the story he made up is hardly consequential. America’s perception of the world is scarcely changed by the veracity of the tale. It sheds light on the man’s character, perhaps. It means something when it comes to his reputation. But when it comes to the larger question of whether or not we’re getting the straight story from the corporate news establishment, it is almost meaningless.

Williams’ greater crime is one that all of his media cohorts share in common. Whether they work for NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, or MSNBC, these “journalists” are guilty of lying each and every time they come on the air. The same holds true for the reporters working for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and all the other left-wing newspapers. Time and again, they have opted to raise the banner of liberalism instead of giving us the real facts.

At few times in history was this more obvious than in the coverage of the Ferguson case last year. The media managed to turn a non-story into a national event, simply by choosing which “experts” to interview, which facts to present, and which fictions to speculate upon. Compare their irresponsibility in covering this story with Williams’ lie, and you’ll see there really is no comparison. Of course, Williams was every bit as guilty of botching the Ferguson case as the rest of them, so he’s not off the hook.

Even if Brian Williams manages to come out the other side of this with his job intact, his reputation will forever be tarnished. That’s too bad, because his fictional war heroism is an insignificant drop in the bucket next to his career-full of liberal lies. If this was a just world, nearly every reporter in the country would hang their heads in shame right alongside him.