The Arrogance and Duplicity of Brian Williams and NBC
That was just false. As I noted last week after I interviewed CNN's former anchor Aaron Brown, who offered a similar defense, these retired Generals -- certainly including McCaffrey -- repeatedly argued in support for the war and the ongoing occupation, not merely commented upon military tactics. But to NBC, the substantial financial interests of their "independent" military experts to advocate for the war were simply "not their interest." Of course, it's not all that surprising that NBC News doesn't consider these conflicts worth noting given that, as a subsidiary of General Electric, a corporation that also profits greatly from increased defense spending and wars, NBC News is plagued by the very same conflicts in its reporting on the Government's military policies.
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Just consider what is going on here. The core credibility of war reporting by Brian Williams and NBC News has been severely undermined by a major NYT expose. That story involves likely illegal behavior by the Pentagon, in which NBC News appears to have been complicit, resulting in the deceitful presentation of highly biased and conflicted individuals as "independent" news analysts. Yet they refuse to tell their viewers about any of this, and refuse to address any of the questions that have been raised.
More amazingly still, when Brian Williams is forced by a virtual mob on his blog yesterday finally to address this issue -- something he really couldn't avoid doing given that, the day before, he found time to analyze seven other NYT articles -- Williams cited McCaffrey and Downing as proof that they did nothing wrong, and insists that his and their credibility simply ought to be beyond reproach because they are good, patriotic men. But those two individuals in particular had all kinds of ties to the Government, the defense industry, and ideological groups which gave them vested interests in vigorous pro-war advocacy -- ties which NBC News knew about and failed to disclose, all while presenting these individuals to their millions of viewers as "independent." Is there anyone who thinks that behavior is anything other than deeply corrupt?
