In Iraq in 2003, so Brian Williams told us, he and a small band of soldiers were riding in helicopters ahead of the main American invasion force when they came under RPG fire. In New Orleans, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, so he told us, Williams and his camera crew stood like the only beacon of hope — literally the only beacon of light in a darkened city — with roving gangs lurking in the rubble. Something akin to Kurt Russell’s “Escape from New York.”
In both cases, we can see Williams working on his narrative, his brand — out ahead of things, in extreme danger, the only goal being to get the story.
But it all recently started to crumble. And why? The advent of instantaneous and global publishing by anyone, which came into being when social media met the World Wide Web. No longer was it the purview of “media” outlets to decide who and what would be heard from; now we’d all be heard from, and it just became a matter of whether anyone was up for listening — for reposting, for re-Tweeting — to turn the easily ignored into the viral.
And so when one of the military folks on the chopper with Williams posted on Facebook that his unbelievable story was just that, it was the beginning of the end.
What does this mean to you? It means you’d better fight off the urge to build your brand the easy way — with a little embellishment here, a little exaggeration here, and perhaps a tiny dose of whole cloth when you’re pretty sure nobody is watching. It means you’d better get out there and live the life you want to talk about rather than taking valor you didn’t earn. Because today, somebody with a smart phone actually took a picture of the fish you caught and is going to post it to FaceBook after you go on and on about wrestling Jaws into the boat.
“Really? 4 feet? Looks like 4 inchs 2 me! #fullofit”
If you have integrity — the kind that isn’t contingent on your chances of getting caught, you’ve got nothing to worry about. But if you’re a bit situational about your ethics, if you run the numbers about how many folks are in the Chinooks and the chances one of them will remember what you’re talking about and sound the alarm, you’re playing with some serious fire (the real kind this time).
You see, it’s a different world than it was in 2003 when Williams took his uneventful helicopter ride, and the math he used to make his deceptive calculations no longer works — it’s the NEW math, the Twitter math, the math which says EVERYONE is going to find out EVERYTHING you’ve done — good, bad or ugly.
Not just in journalism but in all positions of leadership, your credibility, your moral authority, the ability to trust you is what makes people follow; what makes them give you the benefit of the doubt and move down the path you’ve charted. Show yourself to play fast and loose with the facts in order to burnish your brand and you’ll immediately lose them, with little chance of recovering your shattered reputation.
Because once you’ve been outed as a phony, there’s little chance of coming back, even after six months without pay.
ralphrainwater says
Your editorial is spot on. I have a hard time comprehending how people in positions of authority don’t seem to understand everyone has the Internet, everyone can fact check, and lies or shadings of the truth will be found out immediately. Whether it’s Brian Williams, a President, a CEO, anybody who pretends to be an opinion leader — you must be honest, or your credibility will vanish. Why is this fact so hard for public figures to grasp?