Tara Parker-Pope attempted a defense of disgraced NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams in an item ("Was Brian Williams a Victim of False Memory?") posted at the New York Times "Well" blog — late Monday afternoon. It even made Tuesday's New York version of the Old Gray Lady's print edition.
Parker-Pope's premise, similar to that used by Marison Bello at USA Today three days earlier — even using the same "expert" as a source — is that the Williams saga "offers a compelling case study in how memories can change and shift dramatically over time." Parker-Pope's post is particularly pathetic because it appeared online a full four days after Variety reported that Williams "had been counseled in the past by senior NBC News executives to stop telling the story in public." Over the next several days, other media outlets corroborated and built upon what Variety reported. In other words, even if one buys into the memory-shift idea, it can't possibly apply in the Williams case. Excerpts follow the jump (bolds are mine):
Was Brian Williams a Victim of False Memory?
How reliable is human memory? Most of us believe that our memory is like a video camera, capturing an accurate record that can be reviewed at a later date.
But the truth is our memories can deceive us — and they often do.
Numerous scientific studies show that memories can fade, shift and distort over time. Not only can our real memories become unwittingly altered and embellished, but entirely new false memories can be incorporated into our memory bank, embedded so deeply that we become convinced they are real and actually happened.
The fallibility and the malleability of the human memory is at the center of a national controversy involving Brian Williams, the “NBC Nightly News” anchor. In 2003, Mr. Williams was apparently flying behind a helicopter that had been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade. But over time the story changed, to the point that Mr. Williams recounted that he was the one riding in the helicopter that came under fire.
Mr. Williams has been branded a liar for embellishing his role in the event, with critics saying that as a newscaster he should be held to a higher standard. After apologizing, he temporarily stepped away from the nightly news. But memory experts see the issue differently, noting that the well-documented story, told differently many times by Mr. Williams, actually offers a compelling case study in how memories can change and shift dramatically over time.
“You’ve got all these people saying the guy’s a liar and convicting him of deliberate deception without considering an alternative hypothesis — that he developed a false memory,” said Elizabeth Loftus, a leading memory researcher and a professor of law and cognitive science at the University of California, Irvine. “It’s a teaching moment, and a chance to really try to get information out there about the malleable nature of memory.”
Sorry, folks. The lesson of this "teaching moment" is that if your bosses tell you that you've been out there lying and to henceforth zip it, you stop lying and zip it. Brian Williams appears to have done the exact opposite despite the warnings, and to have exaggerated to an even greater degree over time in telling his tall tales.
This is a particularly poor performance by Parker-Pope, who spent many years at the Wall Street Journal covering personal finance and generally did a very creditable job. Perhaps, despite currently hanging out in Pennsylvania, she has been infected by the Old Gray Lady's "make an excuse for liberals and media darlings at all costs" virus. If so, that's a shame.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
