Brian Williams: it’s time for a little helicopter diplomacy

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/feb/15/brian-williams-nbc-time-helicopter-diplomacy

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No cover-ups, no internal investigations, more time, ultimate transparency, six months’ unpaid penance … and so (via the Columbia Journalism Review among others) the clamour over Brian Williams, NBC Nightly News, and the Chinook he wasn’t shot down in over Iraq, 12 long years ago, rumbles portentously on. It’s as though (quite unthinkably, of course) Jon Snow or Huw Edwards had got their remembrances muddled and Ofcom were demanding a royal commission.

America, blogs the ineffable Piers Morgan, “is supposed to be the great land of the second chance, a country which welcomes all comers from around the world who seek reinvention, redemption, a new start. Well, where is Brian Williams’s second chance?”

Buried in huff-puff and twittering pomposity, that’s where. Heaven knows, British journalism takes itself seriously (especially on the matter of second chances for Piers): but American journalism floats on a mighty ocean of self-regard that swamps everything in phoney pomp. Did Williams tell a clever, deliberate porky? Obviously not. There were enough witnesses on his second, unscathed Chinook to make fibbing about his heroism ridiculous. This was simply a sad screw-up: sound, fury, memory glitches – and nothing much more.

“Infotainment confusion syndrome,” said the great Jon Stewart, the comedian who became America’s “most trusted” because he cracks good honest jokes: “Finally someone is being held to account for misleading America about the Iraq war.” Stewart – who makes integrity and wit a perfect fit – will be packing his own bags later this year, alas: a vacancy just as Williams’s six months on the bench ends. But don’t go there yet … some jokes take time to mature.