By ANDRES CASTILLO
In the wake of revelations that NBC Nightly News Correspondent Brian Williams fabricated reports about being shot down in a helicopter in 2003 during the Iraq War, journalists and news networks have come under fire.
In recent years with the introduction of the Internet news model, broadcast television news has seen a decrease in its audiences. How will the audience react now that one of nightly news most recognizable faces has admitted to wrongdoing that spans over a decade?
Williams was the face of the NBC networks nightly news program, a relic of news media slowly being replaced by the timelier internet news model. According to the Comcast Corporate site, in the 2013-2014 season, Nightly News had a viewership of 8.8 million. In the last couple of decades, a number of troubling cases of unethical practices among news reporters has surfaced in all forms of news media. With these indiscretions comes the erosion of the public’s trust of its news personalities.
Public Distrust in Mass Media
According to a 2012 Gallup poll, public distrust in the media is at an all time high. 60 percent of respondents replied “Not very much/None at all” when asked “How much trust and confidence do you have in the mass media?”
According to information on media collected by the Pew Research Center in 2012, audiences who tuned into televised evening and nightly news broadcast has decreased 4 percent since 2007. Print media has also seen a downward trend in the last decade. Since 2003, newspaper circulations have decreased by 10 percent. Although there has been a resurgence in print media in the past couple years in part due to diversifying their media sources, such as the implication of the Internet news model with websites and interactive that engage the user; in 2012, the last year data was available, there has been no increase or decrease in term of print circulation, according to the Pew study.
NBC Responds to Williams’ Statement
In response to Williams’ admission, according to BBC news service, NBC has suspended Williams. In statement released on Tuesday, NBC Universal CEO Steve Burke expressed that Williams’ actions “jeopardized the trust millions Americans place in NBC News.” The suspension was referred to as ” severe and appropriate.”
Social media was awash with many poking fun at the reporter and his newfound lack of credibility. “I feel that William as a professional journalist and reporter has a responsibility to report the news honestly without hyperbole,” said Ramapo College senior Paul Gruenert. “With that said, I believe this incident will tarnish the reputation of Williams, but not televised media as a whole.”
NBC sent a strong message when they announced Williams suspension last Tuesday. Days earlier, Williams himself did apologize on the air. “I made a mistake in recalling the events of 12 years ago,” Williams said.”I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG fire. I was instead in a following aircraft.”
Many are saying that its too little, 12 years too late. It seems like even after the suspension, Williams’ credibility may never recover and his time as the face of nightly news has come to an very real end.
I like your reporting, it’s objective and fair. Another angle might be how the credibility of journalists is being hindered by the actions of a select few.