Okay. Can anyone explain why people who are already famous,
stretch the truth?

I'm scratching my head on this one, Jabber!

But I'm not sure his actions have anything to do with his fame. It sounds to me like he originally reported the Iraq incident correctly, then later incorrectly. I am simply wondering if he had a mental lapse. So that in his mind, these events occurred exactly as he reported it.

Alternately, I'm seeing it as an effort on his part to tell the best story in the short amount of time allotted to each bit of news. So for example, he knew corpses were floating by in New Orleans after Katrina, so he incorporated that fact into his evening report, editing it so that he said that HE saw the corpse float past his hotel. Just as a way to tell the story in a tighter time frame.



So I don't know if Williams was suffering from what some call "the fog of war," whether he had some sort of battle fatigue that caused him to confuse the facts -- or whether he was just trying to tell the best story possible in the shortest amount of time by being a bit creative and essentially "fudging" some details related to the main story in order to enhance it. (Something that we do not look to the major networks to do. And something that -- when we learn of it happening -- sounds both unethical and in appropriate.)

It could be any of those things IMHO: But - for me, at least -- I'm not sure it really matters at the end of the day.

However, I also admit I might be jaded, having worked in advertising and marketing for so many years, where these sorts of things are more commonplace. So how much does this bother the rest of you?

Here's a solid article I found today on this topic in the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/09/busine...;pgtype=article

Something must be a bit off or he wouldn't have taken himself off the news for a time. But Hillary did the same thing. And so have others. It doesn't really bother me. It just seems odd for folks' who've reached the top, to shoot themselves in the foot like this. That's all.

I agree, Jabber. And based on what NBC Corporate is saying today, THEY think it is a lot more serious than I had taken it to be. I'm not media minded, so you've already heard my opinion. But apparently the bigwigs at corporate see this lack of credibility could bring down their entire network if its not shut down properly right now...

I still maintain that Williams problem came when he would go on the talk shows, where his goal was to be entertaining -- not to be a news reporter. THEN, it seems, he got into the habit of embroidering the truth, in order to be more entertaining. And isn't that something that happens at social events all over the world? People trying to be entertaining and witty? One-upping each other? And suddenly "fish tales" are being told?