Embedding, embellishing and embarrassing: Brian Williams ‘misremembers’ but social media reminds him

Joseph, SA; Rickett, C

Embedding, embellishing and embarrassing: Brian Williams ‘misremembers’ but social media reminds him

Joseph, SA

Rickett, C

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Ethical Space: the international journal of communication ethics, 2017, 14 (1), pp. 32 - 41
Issue Date:: 2017-01-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Joseph, SA https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4978-6633	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Rickett, C	en_US
dc.date.available	2016-08-01	en_US
dc.date.issued	2017-01-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Ethical Space: the international journal of communication ethics, 2017, 14 (1), pp. 32 - 41	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	1742-0105	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/92089
dc.description.abstract	“It felt like a personal experience that someone else wanted to participate in and didn’t deserve to participate in.” Brian Williams enjoyed the trust of his organisation and audience for 10 years as NBC’s Nightly News anchor and Managing Editor. But on the night of January 30, 2015 during a broadcast, his high profile status began to unravel. Venerated as a reliable news source, Williams was forced to explain his legendary story of survival one day in the skies above the Iraq War. His version of an attack on a Chinook helicopter he was travelling in was circulated and valorised by his own corporation for 12 years. But when American soldier Lance Reynolds and other military challenged the veracity of his version of historical events, the corporation was forced to suspend him. Williams equates his rewriting and false reporting of this historical event as an act of ‘misremembering’. This assertion is a clear breach of how the Society of Professional Journalists missions its American members: ‘ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough. An ethical journalist acts with integrity’. NBC responded to this breach by suspending Williams for six months. However, the focus of this paper is audience response and the ways in which the production of new online texts, in the form of satirical memes, ubiquitously serves to critique and ridicule Williams’ claim of ‘misremembering’. And as such, the circulation of these online memes which re-appropriate historical moments, lend themselves in turn to the manufacture of parodic artefacts.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Ethical Space: the international journal of communication ethics	en_US
dc.title	Embedding, embellishing and embarrassing: Brian Williams ‘misremembers’ but social media reminds him	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	1	en_US
utslib.citation.volume	14	en_US
utslib.location.activity	United Kingdom	en_US
utslib.for	1903 Journalism and Professional Writing	en_US
utslib.for	2001 Communication and Media Studies	en_US
utslib.for	2201 Applied Ethics	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences/Creative Writing Program
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - CPCE - Centre for Creative Practices and the Cultural Economy
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.consider-herdc	true	en_US
pubs.issue	1	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	14	en_US

Abstract:

“It felt like a personal experience that someone else wanted to participate in and didn’t deserve to participate in.” Brian Williams enjoyed the trust of his organisation and audience for 10 years as NBC’s Nightly News anchor and Managing Editor. But on the night of January 30, 2015 during a broadcast, his high profile status began to unravel. Venerated as a reliable news source, Williams was forced to explain his legendary story of survival one day in the skies above the Iraq War. His version of an attack on a Chinook helicopter he was travelling in was circulated and valorised by his own corporation for 12 years. But when American soldier Lance Reynolds and other military challenged the veracity of his version of historical events, the corporation was forced to suspend him. Williams equates his rewriting and false reporting of this historical event as an act of ‘misremembering’. This assertion is a clear breach of how the Society of Professional Journalists missions its American members: ‘ethical journalism strives to ensure the free exchange of information that is accurate, fair and thorough. An ethical journalist acts with integrity’. NBC responded to this breach by suspending Williams for six months. However, the focus of this paper is audience response and the ways in which the production of new online texts, in the form of satirical memes, ubiquitously serves to critique and ridicule Williams’ claim of ‘misremembering’. And as such, the circulation of these online memes which re-appropriate historical moments, lend themselves in turn to the manufacture of parodic artefacts.

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item:

http://hdl.handle.net/10453/92089