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Lecture: Brian Williams [touts his strong BS meter]
Bulletin, NYU Journalism ^ | April 4, 2007 | Kristen O'Gorman

Posted on 02/05/2015 12:01:05 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife

Brian Williams began his recent lecture in NYU’s ournalism department on a harsh note.

“It doesn’t matter what you look like, it doesn’t matter who you know. If you can’t write that lead, then get out,” Williams said.

But Williams, who visited NYU on April 4, 2007, quickly softened the blow of this severe pronouncement — he admitted to students that his own broadcasting career had gotten off to a difficult start in Pittsburg, Kansas. “I was making $174 a week, and I bombed out after 13 months because I sucked,” Williams said.

He left Kansas for Washington, D.C., where he worked as a White House intern before snagging a job behind the scenes at a TV station. His boss there liked him and helped him improve his broadcasting skills. “You’ve got to be a hustler,” Williams said. “Anything worth wanting is worth fighting for.”

For the aspiring broadcasters in his NYU audience, Williams had some special advice. He encouraged them to maintain their own voices, rather than trying to sound the way they think a broadcaster should sound.

“Picture a focus group of people, living or dead, who you have loved in your life, and talk to them,” Williams suggested. “And if you can do that, you’ll find you’re being yourself. People have a great BS meter; it’s built in. They’ll know when they’re being taken for a ride.”

After years of experience in the news business, Williams said he has developed his own “strong BS meter” — he can watch the local news in any city in this country and tell you which anchors went out to dinner that night instead of staying and writing between the 6 o’clock and 11 o’clock news. Williams also said he can tell which anchors write their own copy and who’s just reading whatever pops up on the teleprompter. On The Nightly News, Williams reviews every word of the copy before it goes on the teleprompter. “Any time I’ve kicked a word, it’s because I’ve never seen it before,” Williams said.


Brian Williams. Photo: Laurel Angrist

The Nightly News attracts between 10 and 11 million viewers each night. But the playing field for prime-time nightly news is in constant motion, with NBC, CBS, and ABC jockeying for the top slot in the ratings game. The tremendous growth of online media — especially blogs — in recent years has altered the face of journalism.

“You’re going to be up against people who have an opinion, a modem, and a bathrobe,” said Williams. “All of my life, developing credentials to cover my field of work, and now I’m up against a guy named Vinny in an efficiency apartment in the Bronx who hasn’t left the efficiency apartment in two years.”

He added that it’s often difficult to judge the credibility of a blogger. “On the Internet, no one knows if you’ve been to Ramadi or you’ve just been to Brooklyn and have an opinion about Ramadi,” said Williams.

Williams is certainly not anti-blog — in fact, he has his own blog, The Daily Nightly, which he updates every day. But he does worry that the explosion of opinion-driven amateur media might distract the public from big stories or important writers’ work.

“If we’re all watching cats flushing toilets, what aren’t we reading? What great writer are we missing? What great story are we ignoring? This is societal, it’s cultural, I can’t change it. … Like everybody else, I can burn an hour on YouTube or Perez Hilton without breaking a sweat. And what have I just not paid attention to that 10 years ago I would’ve just consumed?”

But these days, Williams acknowledged, if a journalist doesn’t embrace new media, he or she won’t be around for long. Williams cited the example of a reporter at The Philadelphia Inquirer who was fired recently because he refused to start a blog.

“It seems to me that if I’m in print and everything around me says ‘updated seven minutes ago,’ I’m going to want to also have been updated seven minutes ago, if not six,” said Williams. “He or she who doesn't adapt dies.”


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: brianwilliams; fakenews; journalism; msm
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Found this via American Spectator piece by Emily Zanotti: NBC’s Brian Williams Probably Didn’t Get Shot At In Iraq "There are a lot of things from my earlier years I don't really remember orrectly, largely due to a mix of Country Time Lemonade and cheap vodka, but they're mostly innocous things, like how the cat ended up with a red wine stain on its back, how my furniture ended up in that particular formation, or whether Chicago's baseball team had, in fact, won the World Series sometime in April of 2009. I think, though, if I'd been shot at in a helicopter while covering a story in Iraq, I'd have remembered it correctly. It seems like a big event that people could corroborate, right, so that even if I wasn't clear on the details, someone who'd been there would be.

Enter Brian Williams, anchor of NBC's stellar primetime lineup of news shows for old people who don't understand the Internet, who has, since 2003, been telling a story about how his helicopter came under RPG fire in Iraq and was forced to land. Turns out, while there were a few helicopters in the area that had been forced to land after coming under enemy fire, Williams's helicopter landed at least an hour later under near-perfect conditions. Which he, he told viewers of NBC News in a strange non-apology, only found out about on Friday.........."

1 posted on 02/05/2015 12:01:05 PM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
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To: Cincinatus' Wife
“I was making $174 a week, and I bombed out after 13 months because I sucked,” Williams said. He left Kansas for Washington, D.C., where...sucking is appreciated.
2 posted on 02/05/2015 12:03:45 PM PST by SampleMan (Feral Humans are the refuse of socialism.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Whatta ‘tard....


3 posted on 02/05/2015 12:04:30 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

“It doesn’t matter what you look like, it doesn’t matter who you know. Hell, it doesn’t even matter if you tell the truth or not. What matters is that you stay true to liberal ideals.”

Fixed it.


4 posted on 02/05/2015 12:04:48 PM PST by DPMD
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

NBC must fire Brian Williams...it is as simple as that. If williams is not cannd quickly th NBC nightly news viewers will drop like a big rock thrown into water!!!


5 posted on 02/05/2015 12:05:11 PM PST by JLAGRAYFOX ( My only objective is to defeat and destroy Obama & his Democrat Party, politically!!!.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

He added that it’s often difficult to judge the credibility of a blogger. “On the Internet, no one knows if you’ve been to Ramadi or you’ve just been to Brooklyn and have an opinion about Ramadi,” said Williams.

**************************

Or you could just be Brian Williams, sitting there on TV and lying to your face ....


6 posted on 02/05/2015 12:05:47 PM PST by Qiviut ( One of the most delightful things about a garden is the anticipation it provides. ~W.E. Johns)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Schrodinger had it right.....


7 posted on 02/05/2015 12:05:51 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

8 posted on 02/05/2015 12:10:06 PM PST by JPG (The GOPe will always find a way to surrender)
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To: JLAGRAYFOX

NBC is 95% propaganda these days anyway. Their viewers lap it up.


9 posted on 02/05/2015 12:11:59 PM PST by Bullish (He's just NOT presidential material.)
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To: JLAGRAYFOX
NBC must fire Brian Williams...it is as simple as that.

You mean the same NBC that selectively played passages of George Zimmerman's comments with the intent of inciting racial tensions? The same NBC that reported the dangers of a particular car (can't remember the make) by igniting it? The same NBC that constantly and purposely pushes misinformation, propaganda, lies, and covers for the Demonic Party? I wouldn't hold your breath...

10 posted on 02/05/2015 12:13:33 PM PST by Common Sense 101
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To: JLAGRAYFOX

I make my living off the evening news
Just give me something
Something I can use
People love it when you lose
They love dirty laundry

Well, I coulda been an actor
But I wound up here
I just have to look good
I don’t have to be clear
Come and whisper in my ear
Give us dirty laundry

Kick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down
Kick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down

Kick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down
Kick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em all around

We got the bubble headed
Bleached blonde
Comes on at five
She can tell you ‘bout the plane crash
With a gleam in her eye
It’s interesting when people die
Give us dirty laundry

Can we film the operation
Is the head dead yet
You know the boys in the newsroom
Got a running bet
Get the widow on the set
We need dirty laundry

[Instrumental Interlude]

You don’t really need to find out
What’s going on
You don’t really want to know
Just how far it’s gone
Just leave well enough alone
Eat your dirty laundry

Kick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down
Kick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down

Kick ‘em when they’re up
Kick ‘em when they’re down
Kick ‘em when they’re stiff
Kick ‘em all around

(Kick ‘em when they’re up)
(Kick ‘em when they’re down)
(Kick ‘em when they’re up)
(Kick ‘em when they’re down)

(Kick ‘em when they’re up)
(Kick ‘em when they’re down)
(Kick ‘em when they’re stiff)
(Kick ‘em all around)

Dirty little secrets
Dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers
In everybody’s pie
We love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundry

We can do the Innuendo
We can dance and sing
When it’s said and done
We haven’t told you a thing
We all know that Crap is King
Give us dirty laundry


11 posted on 02/05/2015 12:17:22 PM PST by mountn man (The Pleasure You Get From Life Is Equal To The Attitude You Put Into It)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Brian “Rambo” Williams.

His next story will probably be telling us about his Navy SEAL days or the 40 lb. bass he caught.


12 posted on 02/05/2015 12:25:39 PM PST by boycott
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Link is radio show with Brian Williams telling ‘the lie; to Letterman... AND Hillary telling hers about being fired at...

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2015/02/05/sharyl-attkisson-brian-williams-not-alone-hillary-clinton-lied-about-being-shot-at-in-bosnia/


13 posted on 02/05/2015 12:31:26 PM PST by GOPJ (Good Muslims and radical Muslims - two sides of the same coin - intertwined and interdependent.)
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To: Liz; sickoflibs

Link is radio show with Brian Williams telling ‘the lie; to Letterman... AND Hillary telling hers about being fired at...

http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2015/02/05/sharyl-attkisson-brian-williams-not-alone-hillary-clinton-lied-about-being-shot-at-in-bosnia/

In his ‘apology’ Brian Williams lies again...


14 posted on 02/05/2015 12:32:12 PM PST by GOPJ (Good Muslims and radical Muslims - two sides of the same coin - intertwined and interdependent.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

He doesn’t have a BS meter, he has cynicism towards anyone who is not a fellow traveler on the left. Thus he researches to ask tougher questions to those he disagrees with. Other than that he is a slobbering lapdog for any leftist he interviews.


15 posted on 02/05/2015 12:41:35 PM PST by RightOnTheBorder
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To: SampleMan

“He left Kansas for Washington, D.C., where he worked as a White House intern”

The jimmy carter administration. That sums up Bee Ess Williams, more than I need to know about him.


16 posted on 02/05/2015 12:42:22 PM PST by duffee (Dump the Chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party, joe nosef.)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

17 posted on 02/05/2015 1:09:19 PM PST by doug from upland (Obama and the leftists - destroying our country one day at a time)
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To: Cincinatus' Wife

Williams was just following company policy.


18 posted on 02/05/2015 2:11:04 PM PST by TBP (Obama lies, Granny dies.)
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To: Paladin2

What, when you open the box (helicopter door) and the cat (news anchor) is alive?


19 posted on 02/05/2015 4:20:40 PM PST by scrabblehack
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To: AdmSmith; AnonymousConservative; Berosus; bigheadfred; Bockscar; cardinal4; ColdOne; ...

20 posted on 02/07/2015 4:30:29 PM PST by SunkenCiv (Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager imagining managing an imaginary men)
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