On Tuesday, the New York Times published a blistering critique of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams following revelations that he lied about riding in a military helicopter that was forced down by enemy fire in Iraq.
Authors Emily Steel and Ravi Somaiya highlight some “sobering news” for Williams with a headline that declared “Under Fire, Brian Williams Loses Lofty Spot on a Trustworthiness Scale.” The article proceeds to go into great detail explaining how since the scandal first broke, Williams has gone from being the 23rd most-trusted person in America, to number 835.
After noting how Williams’ trustworthiness has taken a hit according to the research firm the Marketing Arm, Steel and Somaiya detail how severe the crisis has gotten within NBC News:
The crisis has reached to the highest level of NBCUniversal. Stephen B. Burke, its chief executive, held a meeting at his house this weekend to discuss the next steps. Among the options the network is likely to consider is whether Mr. Williams should apologize again and return to the air, whether he should be suspended or whether he should be pressured to resign, television industry executives said.
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For NBC, the decision is about more than journalistic ethics. It is also about business. The news group is in fierce competition with rival networks for ratings that ultimately affect advertising spending. NBC generated $200 million in advertising sales for its evening news broadcast in 2013, compared with $170.6 million for ABC and $149.9 million for CBS, according to WPP’s Kantar Media. (That is the first full year for which the data is available.)
The Times article goes on to detail the strategy being employed by NBC before explaining that because Williams’ story references the military, his lie is even worse than it already is:
The story involves the military, said Andrew D. Gilman, chief executive of the crisis communications group CommCore Consulting, and a war in which “a lot of people died, a lot of people came back permanently injured — and you’re making stuff up to make yourself look better?”
People hold anchors to a higher standard of honesty than politicians, Mr. Gilman said. “We trust them to moderate debates when we’re electing presidents,” he said. At this point, he said, it is an issue of trust in the broader brand — NBC News — and even a star like Mr. Williams is not bigger than the show, or the network.
The article concludes with a quote from Matt Delzell, managing director of the Marketing Arm, which publishes the trustworthiness scale, to suggest that Williams may never regain the trust he once had:
Matt Delzell, managing director of the Marketing Arm, owned by the advertising giant Omnicom, said that it would be particularly difficult for Mr. Williams to regain that trust compared with athletes like Tiger Woods or Lance Armstrong, who faced similar reputation crises, because of the position Mr. Williams’s holds as a truth-teller.
“People at some point will forgive, people at some point will forget, but it may be harder to forgive and forget Brian Williams,” Mr. Delzell said.
