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Chuck Ross

Murphy’s Law: Because as Journalists We All Live in Glass Houses. Check Out This Series of Real Events That Left Former ABC News President David Westin Thinking That Tom Brokaw Said — On-the-Record — That Brian Williams ‘Always feels the need to embellish’ and ‘he’s known for making any story about him.’

Feb 10, 2015

Cue Jon Stewart. Even he might not believe this one, but it’s absolutely true.

Mike Allen is the chief White House correspondent for Politico. He’s got a resume a mile long as a very credible journalist, formerly at Time magazine and before that at the Washington Post.

Yesterday, Feb. 9, 2015, he wrote an article on Politico titled “NBC’s outsized Tom Brokaw factor.” The sub-head read “As Brian Williams flounders, his powerful predecessor stays neutral.” You can find the story if you click here.

I am now going to quote EXACTLY the first 8 paragraphs of Allen’s story. I do so because it’s important to understand their order to understand all that happened next.

With America’s No. 1 newscast at stake, NBC Universal CEO Steve Burke held a meeting with NBC News executives at his house yesterday to discuss the next steps in the Brian Williams crisis. Williams still hopes to survive, and is considering the timing and venue for his next apology. But his cancellation yesterday of an appearance on the “Late Show with David Letterman,” scheduled for Thursday, was a sign that the agony – for Williams and the network – may be prolonged.

A potent background voice in these high-stakes deliberations is Tom Brokaw, Williams’ predecessor in the “Nightly News” chair from 1982 to 2004, and one of the country’s most respected voices, period.

“Tom makes his views known at all levels of the organization – corporate on down,” said a network executive who has worked closely with both Brokaw and Williams. “Tom was surprised by a lot of the things Brian has said, and has become increasingly critical through the years.”

In November, President Obama awarded Brokaw the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his career, including his bestselling “The Greatest Generation,” saluting World War II veterans. Behind the South Dakota native’s everyman appeal, Brokaw is an adroit internal politician with a keen understanding of power.

Brokaw, who turned 75 last week, has the title of “special correspondent,” but wields internal and public power far beyond his on-air role, because of his celebrity and moral authority, and his relationships with top executives of NBC and its parent, Comcast.

One NBC veteran said: “Tom is seen as the wise counsel, and what he says goes a long way. He’s not shy about making his opinion known about these things.”

Brokaw, who has always had wary relations with Williams, issued a statement last week that many took as chilly, expressing no support for his successor, but simply saying that Williams’ future “is up to Brian and NBC News executives.”’

Brokaw elaborated in an email to Playbook: “There is a process underway, and I didn’t want to impose myself on to it. This is a very serious issue that must be resolved on the facts. All this endless speculation is unfair to all involved.”

The NBC veteran said: “There is no love lost between those two. It’s always been a very awkward relationship. Brian has always felt very threatened by Tom, and acts very strangely around Tom. Brian wants to make sure he’s out front, and Tom is not in the way.”

“Brian always feels the need to embellish,” the NBC veteran said. “He has always been known for telling stories dramatically, and he’s known for making any story about him.” But the bluster had always seemed more like a quirk than a time bomb. “It was more people eye-rolling: ‘That’s Brian,’” the NBC veteran said.

Allen also has a column on Politico call Politico Playbook. Its tagline is “Mike Allen’s must-read briefing on what’s driving the day in Washington.” The Playbook column yesterday carried the byline of both Allen and Daniel Lippman. According to the Politico website, Lippman “is a researcher/reporter for POLITICO, working primarily on POLITICO Playbook and Capital Playbook.”

The headline on Playbook yesterday read “BROKAW IS NBC FORCE amid Williams woes — OBAMA courts GOP on Air Force One – POLITICO’s new gossip columnist — MARC CAPUTO debuts – BRENDAN DALY’s new job — B’DAY: Manu Raju, Terry McAuliffe.” You can read this Politico Playbook column if you click here.

Remember, “Politico Playbook” is a “briefing.”

In cutting down Allen’s longer story on Williams that we excerpted above, here’s what Playbook ran as the first 5 paragraphs of its column:

THE BROKAW FACTOR: With America’s No. 1 newscast at stake, NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke held a meeting with NBC News executives at his house yesterday to discuss the next steps in the Brian Williams crisis. Williams still hopes to survive and is considering the timing and venue for his next apology. But his cancellation yesterday of an appearance on “David Letterman,” scheduled for Thursday, was a sign that the agony – for Williams and the network – may be prolonged.

A potent background voice in these high-stakes deliberations is Tom Brokaw, Williams’ predecessor in the “Nightly News” chair and one of the country’s most respected voices, period. A network executive who has worked closely with both Brokaw and Williams said: “Tom makes his views known at all levels of the organization – corporate on down. Tom was surprised by a lot of the things Brian has said, and has become increasingly critical through the years.

Behind the South Dakota native’s everyman appeal is an astute internal politician with a keen understanding of power. Brokaw, who turned 75 last week, has the title of “special correspondent,” but wields internal and public power far beyond his on-air role, because of his celebrity and moral authority, and his relationships with top executives of NBC and its parent, Comcast.

Brokaw, who has always had wary relations with Williams, issued a statement last week that many took as chilly, expressing no support for his successor, but simply saying that Williams’ future “is up to Brian and NBC News executives.” Brokaw elaborated in an email to Playbook: “There is a process underway, and I didn’t want to impose myself on to it. This is a very serious issue that must be resolved on the facts. All this endless speculation is unfair to all involved.”

The NBC veteran said Williams “always feels the need to embellish”: “He has always been known for telling stories dramatically, and he’s known for making any story about him.” But the bluster had always seemed more like a quirk than a time bomb. “It was more people eye-rolling: ‘That’s Brian,’” the NBC veteran said.

 

As you can see, now cut out from Allen’s original story is the initial reference to “the NBC veteran” and his initial quote. The only two people who are quoted in the Playbook version of Allen’s story as I have reprinted it, are Brokaw himself and the “NBC executive” in the first paragraph. There is no third person called “NBC veteran” quoted before the 5th paragraph.

Plus, look at all the bolded elements in the Playbook version. I didn’t add them. They are all bolded in the Playbook version Politico published. And they all, seemingly, refer to Brokaw.

Thus, just reading the Playbook version of the story, it would be fair that most readers would think that “The NBC veteran” referred to in the fifth paragraph is actually Brokaw himself, since he is an NBC veteran. Most readers would assume that all that is attributed to ‘the NBC veteran” in the Playbook version is just another way the writer is referring to Brokaw, and it’s a continuation of the email Brokaw sent to Playbook.

Clearly that’s what happened to somebody reading the story at the Huffington Post. I know this because I watched a video posted yesterday on the Huffington Post website. The video was an edition of HuffPostLive, hosted by Ricky Camilleri. Camilleri’s guest was former ABC News president David Westin. The subject of the report was Brian Williams and NBC News. You can see the HuffPostLive video if you click here.

The report lasts close to 8 minutes, and about two and a half minutes in, Camilleri says to Westin, “NBC’s veteran anchor Tom Brokaw came out to say he wants to see where the process leads for Brian Williams but he also made some pretty scathing remarks to Politico. The NBC veteran said Williams always feels the need to embellish. He has always been known for telling stories dramatically, and he’s known for making any story about him. But the bluster had always seemed to be more like a quirk than a time bomb. It was more people eye-rolling ‘Well, you know, that’s just, that’s just Brian.’”

On screen while Camilleri is saying this we see a quick shot of the Politico Playbook column and then a graphic. I made a screen grab of both of them:

playbook page

tom brokaw on brian williams graphic

Camilleri continues talking to Westin: “Is Brokaw embellishing here as well, or is this something that you, in the news business, was sort of aware of? Was this just fodder that everyone talked about and rolled their eyes at Brian sometimes?”

Westin replied, “I know Brian. I’ve known him for some years. I know him to be a really able journalist, and a very decent man, deep down inside. Tom may have seen a different side of him than I saw. He certainly is a good storyteller as we’ve all seen as he’s been on late-night talk shows and things. He’s very witty and very charming. But I certainly have not seen that side of Brian. I’m not in a position to accuse him of that.

“The reason I was sympathetic is that we can all make mistakes. And by the way, most of us have. It may not be this mistake, but it’s mistakes that we look back on and are embarrassed by and can’t imagine how we did it. And knowing Brian a bit, I suspect that that’s just the way he feels.

“I think one of the most dangerous things you can do in a situation like this is think that this could never happen to me, or to my news organization, because the sad truth is that it could.”

Whaat? Come on Westin, what the hell are you serving up here? OK, I’m being sarcastic. On this point he’s right. Many of us think that a domino effect of missteps can’t happen to us.

I mean, it would be as if a Politico made it seem Tom Brokaw said things he never said, and then a Huffington Post never double checked whether or not Brokaw really said those scathing things about someone and then asked you what you thought about them. How friggin’ embarrassing that would be!

But naw, that could never happen…

6 Comments

  1. Nice analysis

  2. How about pursuing Huff Post for comment?

  3. I read through the ending of paragraph 4 and beginning of graph 5 (in green above) multiple times before moving on to see if I was missing something in the identification of the “NBC veteran.” Like you, I was. Identification.
    I want to know who the unnamed NBC veteran is, and will you email me after you find out please?

    • Hi Steve…the “NBC veteran” is clearly a source used by Allen who he has agreed not to name. If you go back and read the first 8 paragraphs of Allen’s original story (in the pinkish-purplish color in my blog), you will see Allen’s first (and later) references to an “NBC veteran.” It’s someone who Allen spoke to who is only identified by the “NBC veteran” moniker—she or he is not otherwise identified in Allen’s original piece. So we will never know who that source is unless Allen identifies the source, or if the source decides to self-identify himself or herself. I have no quarrel with Allen’s use of sources who are not identified by their real names in the story. The problem, as you saw, was that in the Playbook (green) version of the story, the way it is edited makes it so most readers assume that the “NBC veteran” in that version is Brokaw.

      Chuck Ross
  4. This is a clear case where the source should have been identified by name or not quoted. The character of two persons is called into question by the quotations based upon an anonymous statement. A good journalist wouldn’t go there.

  5. Great job in synthesizing this drama, ethics, commercially driven Journalism story of the year. Brian Williams will hopefully get a second chance and why not?
    This would be a great “comeback” story and show the world that corporate mono-leuths like NBC/Comcast can give a guy a break. NOT!
    Now what I want to know is where was NBC’s management over-sight in Brians outside the network visits? Where was the PR apparatus?
    My guess is that those who made this decision, are the people that will be leaving next. Anyone agree?
    Did management not sort of contribute to Brian Williams shenanigans? Where was the over-sight? Where was Tom Brokaw’s voice?
    This story sounds very similar to that of Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite….

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