National newspapers were slow to call NBC News anchor Brian Williams’ false stories — he recently admitted that his oft-repeated claims about being aboard a U.S. military aircraft downed by enemy fire in Iraq were untrue — an outright lie but that changed this week.
The New York Times, Washington Post and USA Today have all identified Williams falsities as a “lie” or “lies” in the course of the last few days.
In an obituary for Times media columnist David Carr, who died Thursday, the paper recalled “revelations that the NBC anchor Brian Williams had lied about being in a helicopter under fire in Iraq in 2003.”
A Washington Post story this week about internal NBC deliberations over the fate of Williams said, “Senior NBC officials seriously considered firing anchor Brian Williams because he lied to his viewers about riding in a military helicopter hit by a rocket-propelled grenade during the Iraq war, according to a top network official.”
The most devastating assessment of Williams came from a staff editorial at USA Today. No other national paper has used their entire publication’s voice to condemn the embattled anchor.
“NBC’s belated decision to suspend Brian Williams won’t go over well with the Queen of Hearts crowd, who’d rather lop off his head now and get the facts later,” USA Today said Wednesday, referring to NBC’s decision to suspend Williams for six months without pay. “Nor will it sit well with friends who’ve tried to minimize the tarnished anchorman’s lies.”
When news first broke last week about Williams’ discretions, outlets were unwilling to use the word “lie” or “lies,” which would imply an intent to deceive. Instead, the Times called it a “mistake.” The Washington Post use the phrase “false story.” Stars and Stripes, the military-centric paper that first broke the story, used “false claim.” And the Wall Street Journal called it a “story” that was “false.”
