A brief thought on the Brian Williams saga

I’ve been trying to think of how to phrase my response to the Brian Williams story.

For the uninitiated here is a summary: Williams has announced that he is taking a hiatus from NBC Nightly News in the wake of revelations that stories he told about being under fire in Iraq were untrue.

NBC had to act — Williams couldn’t continue without further damaging his own and the network’s credibility. But I’ve been uneasy with the righteous indignation in the media and the blogosphere.

In the end, I think my comment on a friend’s Facebook status sums up my initial thoughts:

In the end, he should be removed from his post but we need to end the vitriol. We have no way, at the moment, on knowing exactly what happened — did he lie to boost his resume or innocently misremember? I think that does matter, thought NBC has to address it either way. What I can say is that the vitriol and judgmental yammering is counterproductive. I grabbed this from a bible site: “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.
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Author: hankkalet

Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.

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