People are kind of sore at news anchor Brian Williams for telling porkies (UK slang for “lies”) about his various heroic deeds and adventures in the course of reporting the news.
This boy made his bones covering Hurricane Katrina: in the words of one of his colleagues, thus “taking ownership of the anchor chair.”
Hurricane Katrina–remember that? Remember the lurid stories that came out of New Orleans–stories that turned out not to be true? There were no 10,000 people dead. The murder rate did not go through the ceiling. Looters did not strip the city bare. It was just a lot of people doing the best they could during a very tough time. The people of New Orleans did not turn into a seething mass of wild animals.
The highlight of Brian’s journalistic narrative: he’s staying at a 5-star hotel in the French Quarter, he looks out his hotel room window, and he sees a body go floating by, face-down.
Now it turns out there was no flooding in that part of the city, so the story can’t possibly be true.
But let’s be fair! The poor man never said he saw the dead body floating in water. He didn’t say what floor his room was on. So maybe he’s not a miserable self-serving tall tale teller. Maybe he looked out the window and saw a body floating in the air. Does that work for you? Does that restore your faith in America’s nooze media? Can you render a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity?
If the stories they’re reporting to us aren’t true, at least let it be because they just can’t help it.
Maybe it’s because in their dreams news reporters like politicians are wannabe hero’s and sometimes it hard to remember what really happened. Remember Hillary’s coming in on a wing and prayer under fire in Iraq? Americans love war stories.
Yes, I remember that, all right–only it was somewhere in the Balkans, not Iraq. I said “was” as if it had really happened! And it didn’t.
They so badly wanted Katrina to be a tragedy on a par with the Black Death or the destruction of Pompeii, so they could blame it all on George Bush. And besides, it makes a better narrative that way.
Remember when Dan Rather pretended to be on assignment in Afghanistan–and wasn’t?
On the whole, I think we prefer our war stories to be true.
Reminds me of a book I read recently, titled “Amusing Ourselves to Death”
Seems we expect the news to be, above all, entertaining, kind of like a
movie or play. Seems we can’t stand the boredom of just plain old
straight up news. Everything has to amuse us. Pitiful. I guess he was just playing the game to earn his paycheck.
See my reply to Jon. Oh, how badly they wanted Katrina to be far worse than it was! They wanted the football field under the Superdome to be piled high with half-eaten corpses. The people of New Orleans greatly disappointed the noozies by behaving like human beings instead of werewolves.
Good to hear the stories are lies and that people helped each other.
The city government was grossly unprepared for the storm. So, for instance, they had a bunch of school buses set aside for moving people to safety, but no one to drive them. Most of the buses just sat there doing nothing. But one teenager managed to get a whole bunch of people on board, and then he drove it to somewhere in Texas, where they were out of the hurricane. He should’ve gotten a medal.
hmmm, you would think in a location like N.O., the government would
be prepared. great scott, how hard would it be to write down a few
plans, list needs, recruit people and have standby crews. Maybe all could not make it, but surely some of them could.
Mayor Nagin’s regime was not prepared for anything except corruption.
Well, seems plenty of that to go around.
This article prompted me to look up more info about Brian Williams’ lies. Can’t believe he’s still working at MSNBC
He’s more full of BS than a fertilizer factory.
Ouch! Burn!