Back in 2005 I was walking with a colleague from the Baghdad Palace towards the small PX a hundred yards away, both located in the so-called ‘Green Zone’ in Baghdad, Iraq.
As we were walking we noticed a news reporter and cameraman standing not far away. The reporter was holding a microphone and talking as he stood there looking towards the cameraman. Since we were curious we stopped for a moment to listen in. The reporter was just finishing up his news report about a recent large-scale military operation currently underway north of Baghdad near the city of Tikrit.
As we stood there listening we heard the reporter say, “Reporting live from Tikrit with the 4th Infantry Division”, then he ended his broadcast. My colleague and I looked at each other briefly, then just shook our heads and walked away.
We were pretty certain that when we stepped out of the Baghdad Palace and began our short walk towards the small PX that we had not gotten lost and inadvertently wandered up to Tikrit, roughly one hundred ten miles north of Baghdad.
It was pretty apparent to us that the reporter was ‘embellishing’ his story a little, claiming to be in harm’s way with the military conducting operations one hundred miles away, when in reality he was enjoying the relative safety and comfort of Baghdad’s Green Zone. Was he merely ‘embellishing’ his report a little to “provide context” or was he telling the American people a bald-faced lie ?
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So upon hearing today that NBC News Anchor Brian Williams had ‘embellished’ (or was it ‘lied’?) about being shot down while riding in a helicopter in Iraq I wasn’t particularly surprised. In America we’ve become somewhat accustomed to the news media twisting and distorting their news reports to fit a particular agenda. Primarily a liberal progressive Democrat Party agenda.
And particularly during the past six years when much of the news media have near- openly carried the water for Barack Obama and the Democrats. TV personality Chris Matthews even discussed a “thrill that ran up his leg” hearing Obama give a speech.
With NBC news anchor Brian Williams’ lie now exposed where does that leave his credibility or lack thereof, and how much if any should he be trusted in the future to be a fair and unbiased news anchor man ?
The American news media have long proclaimed themselves to be the ‘watchdog of the people’ but they have clearly not lived up to that moniker or responsibility for quite some time.
By failing to investigate and fairly report on Barack Obama’s questionable background and associations over the years, and their curious lack of interest into the tragedy of Benghazi and who should be held accountable, the network and ‘mainstream’ news media have lost what little credibility they had retained since this administration started.
When one compares how the “mainstream” media nearly became apoplectic back in 2000 over finding out that then candidate George W. Bush received a drunk-driving ticket years earlier, and questions about whether he experimented with drugs in his youth, to their complete lack of concern about the skeletons in Barack Obama’s closet clearly illustrates how little credibility they possess anymore. And Americans are ill-served and suffer as a result.
The time is long overdue for the news media to fairly and accurately report Hillary Clinton’s history of lies and deceit instead of being her cheerleading squad. They can start with having Hillary to tell us again about those “snipers she was dodging on the tarmac in Bosnia”.
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