VOTE: Should Brian Williams step aside?

Funny how this past Friday I purposely watched the “NBC Nightly News” to see if there was going to be any after-effect of misremember – gate!

(Here we go with “gate again!)

Nothing would have tipped you off to the inner turmoil that was going on, both inside Brian Williams and the newsroom in general.

But telltale signs there were not.

The mystery of how an incident that had taken place in 2003 could be twisted into an account of near death for the “golden goose of NBC news” deserves some sort of explanation.

Or, at the very least, some action, either on the part of the executives at NBC News or Williams himself to show some contrition for exaggerating the accounts of his being aboard a helicopter in 2003 that was struck by a rocket-propelled grenade. He was actually aboard a different helicopter.

(You can check out the timeline of how the story got convoluted here.)

In any event, the anchor wisely chose the best course of action to salvage his, and the network’s image.
He’s announced that he's stepping aside for 'next several days'

"I have decided to take myself off of my daily broadcast for the next several days," he said in a memo to colleagues on Saturday afternoon.
"Upon my return, I will continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us,"

And:

"….it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news, due to my actions."

Walter Cronkite used to be called “the most trusted man in America” only to be succeeded by Dan Rather -someone who became the butt of late night talk show jokes – and the subject of a scandal which became his undoing.

Many of us “misrember” things that have happened in our lives to the point where we “conflate” memories of different events into one.

To the point that the anchor of “the most watched nightly news program” did on numerous occasions is – and as new reports – is unforgivable.

Should Brian Williams step aside as anchor of the NBC Nightly News?