NBC's evening news anchor man Brian Williams, the highest-rated anchor in the industry, just got caught in a very long and serious lie. During a visit to Iraq in 2003, he was on a trip to an airfield where some insurgents were shooting at aircraft. Four CH-46 Chinook helicopters came under fire and one of them was hit and damaged, and made a hard landing, rolled off the runway, and was damaged. Willams and the rest of the NBC guys arrived about an hour later in another Chinook and by the time they got there the bad guys were gone and they made an uneventful landing. They stayed for about ten minutes and then left. That's what actually happened.
Starting in 2003, NBC News started distorting the story by combining Williams' helicopter in with the earlier flight of four aircraft and said the flight had come under fire and landed, followed by Williams' aircraft... but never mentioned those two events happened an hour apart. Then the legend grows a couple of days later when it changes to his flight being under attack, his aircraft was damaged, and they were stranded for three days and had to be rescued.
Then in 2007, Williams himself amps the story up a little more by putting himself in one of the four aircraft that was under attack and not a fifth one that showed up at any time after the attack. Then comes 2010, and someone at NBC, or more likely Williams himself, ups the story once again for a news release from Notre Dame University that makes it sound like Williams was actually in the aircraft that was hit and damaged.
Now comes 2015, and Williams is now caught twice saying outright that he was in fact aboard the helicopter that was hit, and the guys who were there call him out as a liar. And Williams' response is nonsense such as "I would not have chosen to make this mistake. I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another” and "I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago. I want to apologize.” Yeah, I'm sure any of us could make the mistake of forgetting we were never in a helicopter that came under fire and crashed after landing. It's so easy to mix that event up with a routine landing.
http://www.stripes.com/news/us/nbc-...ts-iraq-story-after-soldiers-protest-1.327792
Starting in 2003, NBC News started distorting the story by combining Williams' helicopter in with the earlier flight of four aircraft and said the flight had come under fire and landed, followed by Williams' aircraft... but never mentioned those two events happened an hour apart. Then the legend grows a couple of days later when it changes to his flight being under attack, his aircraft was damaged, and they were stranded for three days and had to be rescued.
Then in 2007, Williams himself amps the story up a little more by putting himself in one of the four aircraft that was under attack and not a fifth one that showed up at any time after the attack. Then comes 2010, and someone at NBC, or more likely Williams himself, ups the story once again for a news release from Notre Dame University that makes it sound like Williams was actually in the aircraft that was hit and damaged.
Now comes 2015, and Williams is now caught twice saying outright that he was in fact aboard the helicopter that was hit, and the guys who were there call him out as a liar. And Williams' response is nonsense such as "I would not have chosen to make this mistake. I don’t know what screwed up in my mind that caused me to conflate one aircraft with another” and "I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago. I want to apologize.” Yeah, I'm sure any of us could make the mistake of forgetting we were never in a helicopter that came under fire and crashed after landing. It's so easy to mix that event up with a routine landing.
http://www.stripes.com/news/us/nbc-...ts-iraq-story-after-soldiers-protest-1.327792
