Do we want to tar and feather Brian Williams or let him be the BETTER journalist this 'scandal' will make him? And trust me, I've been there

By Piers Morgan for MailOnline

Published: 11:13 EST, 9 February 2015 | Updated: 15:46 EST, 9 February 2015

Execute Brian Williams.

The only logical solution to the frenzied reaction to the NBC news anchor's public admission of a mistake is for him to be tarred, feathered, dragged through the streets of New York to Times Square, and stoned to death.

Even then, I doubt his most ferocious critics, especially in the brutal slaughterhouse of social media, would be sated.

They’d want to see his bones removed, sawn into pieces and hurled into the Hudson river.

The reaction to Brian Williams admission that during a report from Iraq in 2003 he wrongly remembered and exaggerated a story about being shot at has been over the top

The reaction to Brian Williams admission that during a report from Iraq in 2003 he wrongly remembered and exaggerated a story about being shot at has been over the top

Damage: The original report shows the damage suffered by a Chinook after it was shot at in 2003. But Williams was not on that helicopter

Damage: The original report shows the damage suffered by a Chinook after it was shot at in 2003. But Williams was not on that helicopter

We’ve become a world of Henry VIIIs, screaming ‘Off with their head!’ whenever a public figure trips up.

Politicians, celebrities, sportsmen or news anchors – they’re all tossed onto the furnace of righteous, indignant fury at the slightest suggestion they may not be as perfect as we’d like them to be.

Spend a day on Twitter or Facebook and you’ll see a constant whirring torrent of abusive demands for people to lose their jobs.

It’s got ridiculous, and I don’t absolve myself from any personal responsibility for this epidemic. I can be emotionally hyperbolic about people’s careers, especially when it comes to sport.

Full disclosure: I know Brian Williams and I like him. He was very good to me when I joined CNN, privately offering invaluable support and critical advice from time to time.

He’s always seemed to be a thoroughly good man, a solid bloke who takes great pride in his job, his family and his country.

I don’t watch his Nightly News broadcast every night, but whenever I do I see an anchor striving to report the day’s news in an accurate, impartial and informative manner.

When I see Brian on the talk show circuit, I find him amusing, entertaining and game for a laugh.

In person, he carries an authority and charm that makes it crystal clear why he is one of the most liked and respected journalists in America.

Which, of course, is precisely why we all feel so stunned and shocked by the revelation that he’s not perfect after all.

Brian Williams inventing stories? About his war experiences? Unthinkable.

But it’s true. He did. Or rather, wildly exaggerated them.

And there is no journalistic defence for it, so I won’t try and make one.

Other than to say that having heard the accounts of the various pilots involved in the original incident – two of them were interviewed on CNN’s Reliable Sources show yesterday, including the one who flew Williams – it remains quite possible Brian and his NBC crew genuinely feared they were being attacked.

Williams carries an authority and charm and is one of the most liked and respected journalists in America

Williams carries an authority and charm and is one of the most liked and respected journalists in America

It’s also an undeniable fact that he was on a helicopter on the front line of the Iraq War. And that, alone, marks him out to me as an extremely courageous reporter.

As for the other allegations now pouring in against him, from his reporting in Katrina (How does he or anyone else prove whether he saw a dead body in the water or not?) to his work as a New Jersey fire-fighter (Did he save ONE puppy or TWO??? The public demands to be told the truth!), I’ve seen no hard evidence that he fabricated anything.

This morning, he was accused of hyping another helicopter story from Israel’s war with Hezbollah in 2006. But when I read it, the details of the accusation seemed vindictively petty.

There is a baying mob of journalists currently scavenging his professional carcass, gleefully chomping on any scrap they can find that looks even remotely questionable.

Most, if not all of whom would certainly fail their own very high bar of moral, ethical and accuracy-related perfection.

Perhaps it will still emerge that Brian Williams is indeed a deliberate serial liar who made up all sorts of stories, but I very much doubt it.

I emailed Brian some words of support as the scandal exploded.

He replied yesterday, in a manner so heartfelt and agonizing that it moved me hugely to read it.

I won’t reveal the contents of our conversation, but I will say that nobody should doubt the magnitude of both his sincere remorse at what has happened and his determination to put it right.

He also said something specific in one of the emails that made me believe him when he says this was not a wilful attempt at self-aggrandizing.

But regardless of whether you believe him or not, we surely need to get a collective grip and gain some perspective on all this.

Brian Williams didn’t kill anyone. He skewed a story about his experience in Iraq which made him sound a bit closer to the action and therefore more heroic than he actually was.

It was untrue, and wrong of him to do it, but why should it be terminally so?

America is supposed to be the great land of the 2nd chance; a country which welcomes all-comers from around the world who seek reinvention, redemption, a new start.

Well, where is Brian Williams’ 2nd chance?

He has anchored the Nightly News for a decade without a whisper of scandal at his conduct either on screen or off it. And he’s been very successful at it, which is why his show is the most watched news show in America.

He also has to operate in a completely different environment to his feted predecessors.

Walter Cronkite is held up as the gold standard of TV news anchormen, and he was undeniably a great, fearless man, especially over Vietnam.

But how would he have fared under the intense scrutiny of today?

Walter Cronkite was the gold standard, but he enjoyed freebies
Dan Rather's anchor career ended in protest over a false report on Bush's war record

Could anyone stand up to this scrutiny?  A recent biography revealed Walter Cronkite enjoyed lots of freebies and meals with go-go dancers. Dan Rather's illustrious career in the anchor seat ended in protests over his report of President George W. Bush's war record

A recent biography about Cronkite revealed he enjoyed numerous freebies including flights to glamorous vacation spots around the world for his friends and family. He also, reportedly, dined with go-go dancers and bugged a committee room at a GOP convention.

Imagine what Twitter would have made of all that?

Cronkite was lucky he reigned on the airwaves when platforms for public gossip and mockery barely existed.

Another legendary newsman, Dan Rather, saw his long, distinguished career at CBS abruptly end amid a storm of protest over a false report on President George W Bush’s war record.

I interviewed Dan many times at CNN and he struck me as one of the wisest, most decent journalists I have ever met.

Was it right or fair to throw him to the wolves for dropping his first major clanger? To make him a figure of fun and humiliation?

I don’t think so.

I had some personal experience of this vicious dog-eat-dog scenario when I was fired as editor of UK newspaper Daily Mirror in 2004 for publishing supposedly fake photos of British troops abusing Iraqis.

(I say ‘supposedly’ because I’ve never seen incontrovertible truth either way about their veracity, the incident they depicted has never been denied, and one of the soldiers we accused was later jailed for the abuse he perpetrated).

It was a very high profile scandal and many – including a lot of my Fleet Street colleagues, whose own peccadillos would have made for delightfully scandalous reading - reveled in my ignominious downfall. The experience was bruising yet character-building, and the old cliché about finding out who your real friends are rang loud and true – as I’m sure Brian is now discovering.

One thing I know for sure is that if I’d survived, I’d have been a far better editor. One who exercised even more care and caution in similar situations.

Brian Williams, I’m sure, will never embellish a story again, nor I suspect put himself in the middle of it.

He will, if he is allowed, be a better reporter and anchor as a result of what he is now going through.

In fact, ironically, Brian Williams is now the news anchor I would trust most on American television.

I share the dismay that he failed us.

I hope he keeps his job.

 

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