I’m broken
hearted over this whole Brian Williams thing.
By all
accounts, Williams is a gifted storyteller. He’s known for spinning yarns,
entertaining small groups of colleagues and coworkers with quips and tales.
He’s engaging and magnetic and his stories, while sometimes inaccurate, are
amusing and impressive.
The problem
with that is Williams is also a journalist. In the United States we expect our
journalists to tell the truth.
It’s
important to make the distinction that in
our country we hold journalists to a standard of honesty that other nations
simply don’t impose.
Now that
it’s publicly acknowledged that Brian Williams tells tales, the integrity of
his reporting is being questioned. Even though he’s never falsely reported a
story while sitting at the news desk.
