Brian Williams and Jon Stewart: A Matter of Trust

Jon Stewart (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Brian Williams at the Vanity Fair celebration for the 9th annual Tribeca Film Festival. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Once upon a time in America, back when nobody had ever heard of cable and the Internet, a man named Walter Cronkite had the attention of millions of TV viewers as he and his team of CBS News reporters recounted the events of the day.  There was no time for embellishing the stories that were coming from Vietnam and during the Nixon era, nor could they be found hamming it up on the TV variety shows of the day.  At the end of the thirty-minute broadcast, Cronkite would say " and that's the way it is".  For this, Cronkite was considered the most trusted man in America.

In 2015, Cronkite's torch had long since been passed to Brian Williams of NBC News and Jon Stewart of Comedy Central.  An unlikely pair, yes.  Williams, until recently, was a network news anchor in the Cronkite tradition who occasionally appeared on late night comedy shows.  His "Nightly News" had topped the dinner hour ratings since he took over for Tom Brokaw in 2004, and has propped up a news division that is otherwise in disarray.

Stewart, who is a comedian by trade, is a self-admitted fake news anchor whose nightly takes on the world at large and the media that covers it became gospel for those who have been let down too many times by those same media.  He had been hosting "The Daily Show" since 1999, leading the way for Stephen Colbert and John Oliver to introduce similar shows.

But now, Americans are going to have to find someone else to trust.  Williams has been suspended without pay by NBC for six months because he's been caught telling different versions of what happened to him while covering the Iraq war in 2003, claiming that his helicopter was under enemy attack when it really wasn't.  When some of the soldiers who were with him on that trip complained about his story, Williams did an about-face and made an on-air apology.  There are also allegations that Williams "misremembered" tales of other events he covered, such as Hurricane Katrina.

Stewart, who had just mocked the media's coverage of Williams' troubles on Monday, returned the following night to make some news of his own.  Stewart has chosen to leave "The Daily Show" by the end of the year, giving the reason that his contract with Comedy Central was expiring and that he wanted to do something else.  Or maybe it was because the recent Charlie Hebdo massacre had driven home the point that satire is a lot more dangerous than it used to be.

Lester Holt, usually the weekend news anchor and "Dateline NBC" host, will take over "Nightly News" for the time being.  Who replaces Stewart is another matter.  Colbert will soon become David Letterman's replacement on CBS, and Oliver already hosts "Last Week Tonight" on HBO.  A better question is whether Comedy Central should go in a different direction.

Should Williams ever return to NBC, he's going to face a long road back from the huge hole he dug himself if he is to regain the trust of viewers who turned to him for a straight rendition of what happened today. And that should go for all media, because it is always a good idea to let the facts get in the way of a good story if you want to be taken seriously as a journalist.

That should be the way it is.

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On a somber note, Bob Simon of CBS News was killed in a car accident on Wednesday.  He was 73.  Simon had been with the network since 1967, covering wars, the Middle East and the State Department as a correspondent.  Since 1996, he was a "60 Minutes" correspondent.  CBS News has lost a familiar face and voice, and so did we.

UPDATE (6/2/15):  Stewart has announced that his final "Daily Show" will be in early August.  Trevor Noah will take over when the show returns in late September.  As for Williams, NBC is still deciding his fate.

UPDATE (6/19/15):  NBC has apparently decided Williams is sufficiently rehabilitated enough to go back to work for them, but not for "Nightly News".  Instead, he'll be the "breaking news" anchor at MSNBC, a cable network that has seen its ratings and credibility drop after Keith Olbermann left and took the channel's audience with him.  Lester Holt has been given the "Nightly" anchor position on a permanent basis, but he'll be looking over his shoulder at Williams should the ratings falter.