# Brian Williams Helicopter story: blowhard BS, but not a fireable offense **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 6, 2015, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953 "2015-02-06T07:09:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![yorick73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/b5a626/32.png) [@yorick73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yorick73)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/81 "2015-02-08T16:44:22Z")
The thing I find interesting is that Williams admits that he found his own writing on the matter from '08 that confirms that he was not on the bird that was hit. I guess it is possible that he put himself in the wrong bird in his own head but, to me, it seems improbable. Maybe if he had been in other choppers that were fired on in the past and just confused the two stories but I’m not aware that he has ever experienced anything similar. A talking head on some news program brought up an interesting point. Others would have known that his story had been embellished. Certainly his family or others in the crew would have heard the true account in the past and would have told him that he was confused about being shot at. How did that not happen? ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/82 "2015-02-08T17:34:29Z")
All over America this morning, irony meters shattered in a hail of devastating shrapnel, as a Fox panel examining Brian Williams’ credibility problem featured Sharyl Attkisson. That is correct. [Sharyl](http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/11/02/stonewalled-sharyl-attkissons-failed-attempt-to/201405)[Freaking](http://www.breitbartunmasked.com/2014/04/23/more-interviewers-should-ask-sharyl-attkisson-about-her-anti-vaccination-reporting/)[Attkisson](http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/02/05/now-sharyl-attkissons-lawyer-suggests-her-perso/202438). ---
**Author:** ![BOOM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c4cdca/32.png) [@BOOM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BOOM)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/83 "2015-02-08T17:50:25Z")
As a non-American I’m a bit confused, if the newsreader/caster isn’t a journalist and isn’t accountable for the words they read from a promter what’s the point of hearing their version of ‘the news’? And if he isn’t a journalist what would he be doing in the helicopter in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/84 "2015-02-08T18:09:16Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > Unless they are Hunter S. Thompson and it’s gonzo reporting. 😃 Thompson was a deliberately unreliable narrator whose point was that all the sources and material were potentially full of shit because all these sources routinely exaggerate and fabricate. After all, he was a professional. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/85 "2015-02-08T18:13:33Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > I’m not so quick to condemn. I can imagine Williams hunkered down with the soldiers and they start talking about it and one of the guys says “yeah, we took some flak on the way in” and maybe Williams got confused, thinking that he was on the same helicopter. Perhaps he heard the gunfire and thought they were hit. If this was the biggest lie of the Bush era wars, I’d be quite relieved. I haven’t read much about the whole thing but I want to note that what you are saying is absolutely plausible. I did my dissertation proposal (though not my actual dissertation later on) under\* one of the foremost memory researchers in the world. Per that person’s studies, our memories are very much constructions after-the-fact. It is actually almost trivial to get people to falsely remember things in the lab just by telling them the right things in the right way. Outside the lab it happens pretty frequently too, and often just in a way which you’ve described–through hearing the right person say the right thing at the right time to make you think you remember something. \*To clarify–this person was one of the people on my committee, not my advisor. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/86 "2015-02-08T18:19:15Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > And fir whatever it’s worth, I don’t think the man deliberately lied. In addition to the science mentioned above, and to my vague references to “one of the foremost memory experts in the world”, what **Bricker** says here should be given some credibility as well, since as a lawyer (who’s been on both the prosecuting and defending sides of cases IIRC) he has a lot of first-hand experience with the strange ways that humans can construct their memories. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/87 "2015-02-08T18:19:23Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > All over America this morning, irony meters shattered in a hail of devastating shrapnel, as a Fox panel examining Brian Williams’ credibility problem featured Sharyl Attkisson. > > That is correct. > > [Sharyl](http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/11/02/stonewalled-sharyl-attkissons-failed-attempt-to/201405)[Freaking](http://www.breitbartunmasked.com/2014/04/23/more-interviewers-should-ask-sharyl-attkisson-about-her-anti-vaccination-reporting/)[Attkisson](http://mediamatters.org/blog/2015/02/05/now-sharyl-attkissons-lawyer-suggests-her-perso/202438). It is feature for Fox News: Two wrongs make a right for the right wing. ---
**Author:** ![magellan01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@magellan01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magellan01)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/88 "2015-02-08T18:23:46Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > I haven’t read much about the whole thing but I want to note that what you are saying is absolutely plausible. I did my dissertation proposal (though not my actual dissertation later on) under\* one of the foremost memory researchers in the world. Per that person’s studies, our memories are very much constructions after-the-fact. It is actually almost trivial to get people to falsely remember things in the lab just by telling them the right things in the right way. Outside the lab it happens pretty frequently too, and often just in a way which you’ve described–through hearing the right person say the right thing at the right time to make you think you remember something. > > \*To clarify–this person was one of the people on my committee, not my advisor. This really doesn’t apply here. Williams was in a helicopter that was 20m or 30 minutes behind the one that got hit. And while one might “shift” memory to comport with a story, particularly un-extraordinary aspects of it, there is at the other end of the spectrum flat out fabrication. You don’t misremember being in a helicopter that gets shot with an RPG. Williams flat-out lied in order to increase his street creed. The fact that he did so with a fabrication having to do with the military, and in a way that people do actually die, makes it particularly distasteful. They need to give him a LONG vacation and when he comes back he belongs on a news magazine show. He’s done with “news”. ---
**Author:** ![Cubsfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Cubsfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cubsfan)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/89 "2015-02-08T18:32:31Z")
I can’t believe that he would go as far with the story as he did, including parading the retired vet at the hockey game as I mentioned earlier, knowing that his story was a lie. I think he’s an alright news anchor. I’m an AFGN combat vet myself, if that matters, and I’d give him a pass. He hasn’t made any attempt to spin it or come up with an elaborate story to justify IMHO. Bummer if his career ends because of something as meaningless as this. (I want to ask again though, what did the “hockey game honored vet” think he was being honored for? He had to know it was bullshit too. His credibility is trashed more than BW IMHO) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/90 "2015-02-08T18:33:33Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > You don’t misremember being in a helicopter that gets shot with an RPG. I’m not much a fan of Brian Williams, but I certainly don’t think it’s implausible to misremember being under fire. If he’s up there and scared shitless (which one of the chopped pilots says he was, but then that guy apparently misremembered his story, too, so who knows), I think it’s pretty easy to think your copter’s been shot at when it, in fact, hasn’t. My memory does really weird shit like this to me all the time. Then again, I probably have a faultier memory than most. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/91 "2015-02-08T18:38:10Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > In addition to the science mentioned above, and to my vague references to “one of the foremost memory experts in the world”, what **Bricker** says here should be given some credibility as well, since as a lawyer (who’s been on both the prosecuting and defending sides of cases IIRC) he has a lot of first-hand experience with the strange ways that humans can construct their memories. You are thinking of Professor Loftus. [Elizabeth Loftus - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Loftus) and what you are describing with Bricker’s long-ago courtroom and witness experience would be second-hand experience. We all have that first-hand experience. No poster, including Bricker, gets credibility for professional “experience” unless it is backed up with data, which, sigh, may include anecdotes in cases like this. For example, Bricker’s staff reports are good examples of showing the work and expertise. His assertions, such as in this thread, while generous to a fellow Beltwayer, are just his opinions, while my opposite assertions, are suspicious of the press, and in any event, both are just opinions. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/92 "2015-02-08T19:07:55Z")
> [@Cubsfan](#): > > So the vet that he took to that hockey game and made a big event out of didn’t actually do the stuff he was being recognized for then? I thought the whole reason he was getting the shout out from BW and the team was because of his role in bringing BW home safe and sound. Is he as guilty of bullshittery as BW since he knew that the story his accolades were based on were plain BS? > > What was the story there? He was part of the armored column that stopped and formed a perimeter around the downed helicopter and the ones that stopped with it. The column stayed while they were grounded by the sandstorm. What hockey game dude did was not particularly heroic at that moment but he did have an exemplary career. He arrived after the helicopter was hit and made the emergency landing do he would have no reason to know what helicopter Williams was in. > [@boytyperanma](#): > > I think this represents a serious lack of integrity on his part. I think it would be reasonable to fire him over this. That is a decision that should be made by NBC based on how it effects thier viewership. > > What I find is complete bullshit is the calls from the right for him to be fired. If you don’t even watch NBC to begin with what business is it of yours? Some are trying to take advantage of this incident to try and take out an industry rival. Thier calls to have him fired makes me seriously question thier integrity, which by thier own standards should result in thier own firings right? I can’t think of any secede up or even unsuccessful calls for a firing that came from the actual fans or consumers. It’s always from an outside group. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/93 "2015-02-08T19:29:13Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > I’m not much a fan of Brian Williams, but I certainly don’t think it’s implausible to misremember being under fire. If he’s up there and scared shitless (which one of the chopped pilots says he was, but then that guy apparently misremembered his story, too, so who knows), I think it’s pretty easy to think your copter’s been shot at when it, in fact, hasn’t. My memory does really weird shit like this to me all the time. Then again, I probably have a faultier memory than most. Kind of my thoughts, too. The idea that he’d tell such an easily-verifiable lie for such little personal gain is totally bizarre; it’s much more plausible that he misremembered, due to trauma. That said, I can totally see if he gets fired for it. While I doubt actual impropriety, this certainly has the appearance of it, and fair or unfair, it’s going to taint the remainder of his career. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/94 "2015-02-08T20:16:25Z")
> [@magellan01](#): > > This really doesn’t apply here. Williams was in a helicopter that was 20m or 30 minutes behind the one that got hit. And while one might “shift” memory to comport with a story, particularly un-extraordinary aspects of it, there is at the other end of the spectrum flat out fabrication. You don’t misremember being in a helicopter that gets shot with an RPG. The only argument I’ve seen for this says something like “if you’re in a helicopter hit by an RPG, you’ll know it.” But that observation is irrelevant. What would be relevant would be “If you’re not in a helicopter hit by an RPG, you’ll know it.” And that is not at all obvious, espeicially if you _have never_ been in one hit by an RPG. Sicne you don’t know what it’s actually like, you are less likely to recognize that it’s not happening _now_. Sorry a terrible comparison comes to mind but nothing better is occuring to me–lots of women aren’t sure whether they’ve ever had an orgasm or not, and some women _think they have_ when in fact they haven’t. It would make no sense to say she must be lying because “if you’ve had an orgasm, you’ll know it.” She doesn’t know what one feels like, so she has no way to recognize that what’s happening to her now _isn’t_ one. I’m not saying, to be clear, that Williams, at the time, thought he’d been hit by an RPG. I’m saying he might, later, have honestly thought he remembered being hit by one, even if he hadn’t been–and “if you’ve been hit by an RPG you’ll know” is not a relevant, much less adequate, consideration against the possibility that he might have such an honest memory failure. ---
**Author:** ![Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/happy_fun_ball/32/17664_2.png) [@Happy\_Fun\_Ball](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Happy_Fun_Ball)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/95 "2015-02-08T20:17:48Z")
Guy needs to be fired. NBC works very hard to brand themselves as a reputable and trustworthy news source. One of their employees has done more damage to that brand than one person should be able to do. If I were the boss, he would be gone. The details of the exaggerations or lies are not all that important. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/96 "2015-02-08T20:18:26Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > You are thinking of Professor Loftus. [Elizabeth Loftus - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Loftus) and what you are describing with Bricker’s long-ago courtroom and witness experience would be second-hand experience. We all have that first-hand experience. No poster, including Bricker, gets credibility for professional “experience” unless it is backed up with data, which, sigh, may include anecdotes in cases like this. For example, Bricker’s staff reports are good examples of showing the work and expertise. His assertions, such as in this thread, while generous to a fellow Beltwayer, are just his opinions, while my opposite assertions, are suspicious of the press, and in any event, both are just opinions. Sorry, I am having a lot of trouble parsing this post. I first get stuck at “We all have that first-hand experience.” What first-hand experience? Knowing the answer to that may help me understand the rest of your post. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/97 "2015-02-08T20:31:12Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > it’s much more plausible that he misremembered, due to trauma. What trauma? His helicopter was not fired at, and was never anywhere near any ground fire. His original reporting of the story appears to have been at least fairly true to the facts, and is fully consistent with doing nothing more traumatic than riding in a Chinook helicopter and perhaps listening to a radio transmission of a pilot reporting ground fire. I think NBC news would be fully justified in saying: “We expect someone in your position to have far above average skills in accurately remembering and describing past events. Yours seem to be substantially below average.” ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/98 "2015-02-08T20:36:31Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#): > > Wait, why is it clear that he was lying instead of false remembering? > > It seems to me that this claim rests on the notion that no one ever falsely remembers something traumatic like being shot at. But, of course, the whole phenomenon of false memories is mostly focused on false memories of traumatic incidents. > > If what happened here is that Williams flew in on a helicopter shortly after this incident that also took evasive maneuvers, and he saw the shot up helicopter when he landed, and he was generally scared during the whole encounter, I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say he could have falsely remembered it as himself being in the helicopter. Is it really that bad? Suppose I drive by a car accident where a victim has been decapitated. Obviously, that would be very traumatic. Could I really believe years later that a passenger in my car was decapitated? I’ll admit my ignorance on this topic, but I can understand a witness messing up the sequence of events, believing that he actually saw something that was merely suggested to him later and things along those lines. But to believe that I actually received hostile fire in an aircraft when what actually happened was I saw the aircraft on the ground a half an hour later? It stretches belief. ---
**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/99 "2015-02-08T20:49:33Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Is it really that bad? Suppose I drive by a car accident where a victim has been decapitated. Obviously, that would be very traumatic. Could I really believe years later that a passenger in my car was decapitated? > > I’ll admit my ignorance on this topic, but I can understand a witness messing up the sequence of events, believing that he actually saw something that was merely suggested to him later and things along those lines. But to believe that I actually received hostile fire in an aircraft when what actually happened was I saw the aircraft on the ground a half an hour later? It stretches belief. **JTgain** , surely you know that witnesses can be persuaded that they themselves committed murders, when they actually had nothing at all to do with the murder that happened! ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2015, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953/100 "2015-02-08T22:46:12Z")
> [@Frylock](#): > > Sorry, I am having a lot of trouble parsing this post. I first get stuck at “We all have that first-hand experience.” What first-hand experience? Knowing the answer to that may help me understand the rest of your post. First hand experience into how our own memories have failed us and remembered things that did not happen. Eyewitness accounts are unreliable. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/brian-williams-helicopter-story-blowhard-bs-but-not-a-fireable-offense/711953.md?page=6)