Truth, Lies and Misremembering

I don’t normally write about current events or actual news because I’m not a journalist. It’s my job to write about the bizarre and ridiculous things people do; lately those worlds have been colliding. With all of the nonsense going on with Brian Williams, the news has wandered onto my turf so it’s free game for me to take my shot at it.

First I should say thanks to Brian Williams for the material you provided for those hilarious memes that are bouncing around the Internet recently. I really don’t know which one I enjoyed the most; the one where you are pictured scoring the winning goal against the Russians in the 1980 Winter Olympics or the one where you’re taking the shot that freed Captain Phillips from those pirates while battling a severe case of measles you picked up at Disneyland. They’ve all had me laughing for days.

For those of you who have been living in a cave or have real lives and don’t pay attention to the media; there’s been a lot of hubbub lately about Brian Williams’ false account of being aboard a helicopter that was hit by a rocket propelled grenade during the early stages of the Iraq war. Mr. Williams now admits that he was not on the helicopter that was under fire and explains that he simply “misremembered” the events when he claimed that he was … twice … in front of a live audience … and on TV.

I can say that with reasonable certainty that this is utter bullshit; not because I am an expert in memory loss, PTSD, helicopters or rocket propelled grenades but because I am an expert on bullshit and I know it when I see it.

Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging Brian Williams for embellishing a story for effect, I do that for a living. I’ve even used the “misremembered” defense when pesky facts contradict my story … it’s a rookie move that almost never works. On the other hand he’s an anchorman whose livelihood depends on his credibility and integrity while I am a humor columnist whose livelihood depends on embellishing stories.

What strikes me as ridiculous is TV other news organizations are judging Williams very harshly. That is akin to Congress censoring one of their own for corruption, the NBA criticizing the NFL for having bad referees or Justin Bieber calling out anyone else in the world for being a no talent punk. It’s a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black.

I have stopped watching national or world news on TV because I can’t find any national or world newscasts on TV. There are local newscasts and there are plenty of networks dedicated to giving their opinion about politics and world events but I can’t find an actual TV news outlet.

It’s become a complete waste of time to even watch the cable news channels because you already know what they are going to say before they say it. They are simply the propaganda arm of whichever demographic they represent. The only honest “news” on TV is The Daily Show on Comedy Central, not because they practice honest journalism, but because they don’t pretend to.

Let’s be honest, the days of real network news anchors like Walter Cronkite, John Chancellor or Chet Huntley are long gone. These days we have “news celebrities” and they are all pretty much attention whores who have agents and make appearances on talk shows and sitcoms.

Brian Williams lied about his experience in Iraq because it made a better story to tell on the David Letterman Show a couple of years ago and, since he got away with it, he told it again this year but this time he got busted.

To make matters worse Bill O’Reilly, the king of attention whores, came to Williams’ defense while making a guest appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel Show … are you seeing a pattern here?  O’Reilly offered to interview Williams on his Fox News show so he could tell his side of the story and reestablish his credibility.

Wow, going on Fox News to get help with your credibility problem would be like going to OJ Simpson for advice on how to deal with your ex-wife; nothing good will come of it but O’Reilly might get a bump in his rating.

Brian Williams is just a poster boy for what TV news has become. George Carlin said it best, “It’s all bullshit and it’s all bad for you.”