The ex-NBC News star whose career was upended by factual errors had some sharp criticism about the “accuracy” of TV journalists who covered Joe Biden’s mental fitness this summer.
Brian Williams said the language used by pundits to describe Biden after his disaster of a debate in June was both “lazy” and “numbing.”
“It was crushing to watch so many working journalists attempt to generate the words to accurately describe a visibly struggling and diminished president, seemingly unable to complete a sentence or a thought in his disastrous and final debate,” he said.
Williams sent that statement to The Washington Post for a piece that chronicled how 10 prominent journalists think the media should cover Donald Trump through 2028.
Williams, 65, said he would like to see pundits use everyday language in their reports and stop using phrases like “shock waves through Washington,” “stopgap measure,” or “firebrand.” Most people only hear those words when they flip on the news, he said, and not in real life.
“It’s actually insulting, and a gross disservice to those watching and listening— because it doesn’t match what they just saw or heard for themselves,” he added.
Biden’s decline—and the convoluted coverage of it—was an example of where the mass media failed their viewers, Williams suggested. He also took a parting shot at Biden to conclude his thoughts.
“Say it with me: It is perhaps the ultimate irony that the electoral collapse of the Democratic Party in 2024 was triggered in large part by the man who ran to save the country and democracy —the same man who then tried to stay too long at the fair,” Williams wrote. “There, I said it. Now someone please say it into a microphone. You can do it.”
Williams abruptly resigned from NBC in 2021 after spending five years as a breaking news specialist. He was demoted to that role in 2015 after a probe revealed he misrepresented his coverage of the Iraq war in 2003—a bombshell revelation that led to him being suspended from the then-No. 1 rated NBC Nightly News program.
Among the misrepresentations uncovered was a report where Williams claimed he was riding on a Chinook helicopter as it came under enemy fire and was forced to land in dangerous territory. He has since retracted that report and apologized.
The former Nightly News star recently made a foray back into the news world to anchor an Election Night special for Amazon Prime Video, but he is yet to announce any future media plans.
