Some professors are emphasizing the importance of maintaining the line between being a news personality and being a celebrity after Brian Williams, the host and managing editor of “NBC Nightly News,” was suspended after retelling an exaggerated version of a report he did in Iraq.

An NBC in-house investigation is scrutinizing the news anchor for possibly fabricating the circumstances of moments that he was present for. According to a Feb. 12 article by “CNN Money,” due to the questions raised about his reports on Hurricane Katrina and his time in Iraq, NBC suspended Williams for six months without pay.

Talk of embellishment in Williams’ reporting heated up last week when Williams apologized for his on-air error about an Iraq mission saying he misremembered details.

“A month ago, he was one of the most trusted men and now questions have been raised in one story,” said Roy Gutterman, director of the Tully Center for Free Speech and a professor in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications. “My gut tells me I’d be surprised if he came back.”

Gutterman said that a suspension doesn’t accomplish much other than to give NBC time to see what else is lacking in Williams’ reports and to figure out how to handle this situation in the long term.

After once being the 23rd most trusted celebrity in the United States, Williams has fallen to 835th, according to The Marketing Arm, a unit of Omnicom Group that tracks celebrity perception through online polls of consumers.

“I’m not sure what his career options will be. It will be hard to reposition himself,” Gutterman said. “There are less rigorous career options, like entertainment, that don’t have to be (done) by ethics or journalistic standards.”

Gutterman added that he believes the role Williams has played as a celebrity has distracted from his anchor position.

“Let the facts speak for themselves. Your mission isn’t to be a celebrity, to pet your ego or to be a part of the story,” Gutterman said. “It’s to tell the world what news is important.”

Any time one journalist gets caught in a scandal, Gutterman said he thinks it leaves questions for everyone in the profession.

“You have to stick to the facts, what they say,” Gutterman said. “I have to keep myself in check, so the stories don’t get better as I get older. It doesn’t benefit anyone if the story gets better.”

Robert Thompson, director of the Bleier Center for Television & Popular Culture and trustee professor in Newhouse, said he was an admirer of Williams. NBC should have simply parted ways with him, as it is “bad enough” that NBC gave Willliams a six-month suspension, Thompson said.

“Obviously, it is very bad for NBC people,” he said. “As a news organization, NBC has seen dicey times and this doesn’t help them.”

Thompson said he believes that network journalism is “something we need.” But he said he thinks that journalists should not make up stories and tell them on their own newscasts.

Steve Davis, chair of the newspaper and online journalism department at Newhouse, said he thinks having a “news persona” and a separate “personality” can lead to problems.

“What are you? You can’t always be all of these things. Tell the same story as a personality and as a newsman,” Davis said. “It’s troubling because a lot of news people are celebrities.”

Davis said he thinks that unless NBC finds significantly more of Williams’ “skeletons,” Williams will be back.

There is no greater sin than to embellish a story to make it sound better, Davis said. He said he finds it very hard to believe that Williams was confused about his reports and said that it is a “major ethical transgression.”

Published on February 17, 2015 at 12:01 am

Contact Katelyn: kmfaubel@syr.edu