Brian Williams is at the center of a controversy about right speech. He, over the years, told a story about Iraq that is untrue, and recently he got "caught" in the tall tale. Since he's a broadcaster, everyone is up in arms about his integrity, though I think we all know that television broadcast news is not a pillar of accuracy. These anchors are entertainers more than journalists, and what they are asked to do must compromise most journalistic standards. Still, Williams cast himself at the center of war action, risk and imminent danger, when actually, it was the soldiers around him who risked themselves for him. Too many movies, perhaps, or the temptation to tell a really good story led him astray.
We know from research that the more times a story is told the less accurate it becomes, and our brains store the latest false memory as true. So Williams is like the rest of us: he gets further and further from the truth the more he describes the event. I don't much care if he loses his job or not, as I never watch broadcast news anyway, but the self righteousness displayed by many seems disingenuous or hypocritical to me. Our brains like to sit by the fireside and entertain our fellow humans. We don't need to turn on a switch to do this, it's automatic.
Now I understand veterans taking umbrage over this situation. Nobody really wants to hear what they went through, but this guy gets the shock and awe response. Real heroes don't brag. And usually they don't talk about what happened at all. My dad didn't talk about World War II. He wanted to get on with his life and forget all the fear and pain and suffering. Williams somehow hasn't understood the nature of war or the people who fight in it, and that is the tragedy. He's failed at empathy, and a good reporter has to have that quality in spades.
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