So now they're digging into Brian Williams' expense accounts? My, how the mighty have fallen. If we didn't sell newsreaders as celebrities, things might not have gotten so out of hand. Via Mediaite:
If this report is to be believed, there are a lot ofBrian Williams fabrications. Like, a lot. And yesterday’s suspension of the anchor over revelations that he exaggerated stories from the Iraq War allegedly stemmed from a larger internal investigation at NBC, with enough findings to compile a full dossier and enough allegations to prompt an overview of his expense accounts.
New York Magazine wrote last night about that day’s meeting between the embattled anchor, his agent, and NBC Universal CEO Steve Burke, which resulted in Williams’s six-month suspension without pay. During that meeting, Williams was presented with a document detailing his “apparent lies” — which, considering that his reporting was called into question over one story about being hit by an RPG, hints at a lot of embellishments.Though the document hasn’t been released yet, sources at NBC say that Williams’ history of stretching the truth was well-known, and NBC execs had tried to curb his habits for the past decade:
As word of Williams’s habit of embellishing spread through the network over the last decade, powerful voices tried to stop him. According to sources, former NBC News president Steve Capus and Tom Brokaw implored Williams to stick to the facts. “A lot of people, including Tom Brokaw, all said, ‘Let’s be careful here,’” one person with knowledge of the conversations told me. Capus left NBC in February 2013. One month later, Williams made his pivotal appearance on David Letterman‘s show, where he revived the now-discredited Iraq story. “This is similar to Dan Rather in the ’80s,” one former NBC executive told me. “There’s no checks and balances. Brian has so much power.” Williams’s embattled boss, Deborah Turness, has struggled to gain control of the news division.
