Jake Tapper: Did NBC Deliberately Mislead In Brian Williams' Original Chopper Report To Make It Seem As If His "Bird" Were Under Fire?

Possibly explosive stuff, or it would be, if the network gave f***-all about its reputation any more, which it very much does not.

The key thing here, per Stars & Stripes reporter Travis Tritten, is that NBC played action-packed Under Fire radio chatter presented as if it were taken from Williams' own bird, when in fact it was relayed from the other choppers.

TAPPER: [Chris Simeone] said that the only thing that hit their helicopter was dust, and that nothing that Williams reported in 2003 was accurate. I want to play some of what Brian Williams reported in 2003, in which there is this moment when somebody says there was small arms fire coming into the convoy. Let’s play that.

BRIAN WILLIAMS [VIDEO]: Indeed, just before we’re able to make our drop, radio traffic makes clear that this routine mission is running into trouble.

RADIO CHATTER [VIDEO]: We took fire on the way in. We currently are not under fire, I say again, not under fire, but we look for some kind of security, over.

TAPPER: So there is this moment where somebody’s saying our helicopter is taking small arms fire and it’s not taking it now, but they were and we need to find some place for security, over — that’s in the radio. Do you have any idea what that was in reference to?

TRITTEN: I do, actually. I spoke with the flight engineer on Williams' Chinook, Joseph Miller, and what he told me is that Williams and the NBC crew, actually, they’d been given a headset and they had taken a microphone, and they had put it in the earpiece of the headset so that they could pick up the radio communications between the company that they were in and another company of Chinooks that was flying a separate mission in the opposite direction. So what you’re hearing is that radio chatter from that other company that was coming under fire.

So this is how NBC got the audio of the choppers-under-fire while inside Williams' chopper; but NBC and Williams knew that audio was being relayed from a remote location (the other flight of choppers).

Yet they presented it with the heavy implication that it had been Williams' chopper under fire, and in fact tweaked their script (speaking of "our" delivery being in trouble, or "this" mission in jeopardy), knowing all along it was false.

No wonder NBC will take no action against Williams -- NBC faked this up twelve years ago and is every bit as guilty as he is.

For some humor:

This was on Chris Wallace.

posted by Ace at 06:55 PM

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