On Fri, Feb 6, 2015 at 3:12 AM, JW <[email protected]> wrote: > > It is not at all difficult to believe that someone could honestly > > and mistakenly reconstruct a memory about being shot down in a helicopter > > 12 years ago, when in fact they were in a trailing helicopter, landing > safe > > and sound. > > Yes, but after we find out, it is then difficult to believe that person > when he reports on other things. Misremembering a detail like the number of > helicopters in the group would be easy to let slide. Something as important > as whether his chopper was seriously damaged is another matter entirely. >
This is my point. If we assume that this is a memory issue (and not a straight out lie), then while it may be difficult for most of the public to believe Williams now when he reports on other things, that is only because most of the public does not understand how memory works. Something as important as his chopper being seriously damaged is really not "another matter entirely". Misremembering a dramatic and traumatic event is a function of the same memory processes as misremembering who got off the funniest line at the dinner party you were at last week, or who scored the winning touchdown in your high school homecoming football game 20 years ago. If Williams did conflate the helicopters, it would have zero bearing on his honesty or credibility as a journalist. My original point was that, assuming this is a memory issue, the fault is not one of honesty, but of Williams reporting this story on television without double-checking his facts. That is a lesser crime than lying, and I don't think deserves being fired (or, if it does, there would almost literally be nobody left doing television or internet news). > ... it would also seem to be implicating both Brokaw himself and former > NBC > > News chief Steve Capus in the deception. > > I don't know that Brokaw has an obligation to go public with this > information. > I don't know that either. But if Brokaw is going around demanding that Williams be fired because he has been telling this lie for years even after he (Brokaw) and others have told him to stop, then it seems Brokaw is saying he has been complicit in the ongoing lie. As I said, the report that Brokaw was doing this was in one of the least credible "news" sources that we have, and as has been noted elsewhere on this thread, already other reports deny it. And again, I have no investment in Brian Williams. For all I know he is a pompous fraud, and he has been telling a story he knows to have been false for years in an attempt to pad his ego and reputation at the expense of the courage and sacrifice of others. If so he is a cad and should be fired. But I would need some evidence to support that kind of claim. Based on what we know about how human memory works, the most likely explanation of why someone in his position would repeat on national television a claim so easily demonstrated to be false is not that he is a narcissistic liar, but that he is an all-too human rememberer. All of us fall prey to the same memory failings all the time - the drama and the trauma involved in this one do not make it any different. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
