CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Brian Williams: ‘Angry’ ‘Lesser’ Online Outlets Starting to ‘Eat Him Alive’
NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams hasn’t found many defenders after he apologized last night for misrepresenting the details of a story he’s been telling for years about getting shot down while in a helicopter over Iraq. But CNN’s Chris Cuomo came close on this morning’s New Day when he expressed concern over the way media critics are jumping all over the NBC newsman.
After CNN media reporter Brian Stelter recounted the basic details of the Williams story for New Day’s audience, Cuomo asked him, “How big a deal is this?”
“I don’t know him, he’s not a friend of mine,” Cuomo clarified, ensuring viewers that “this is not about protecting the collective,” adding, “if anything, I feel opposite about the media in general.”
“But you know what’s going to happen,” he continued. “They are starting to eat him alive and I can understand being protective of oneself in that situation.” When Stelter asked if he should be considered part of “they,” Cuomo said he was talking about “online, those lesser outlets and the growing mass of the angry.”
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In contrast to Cuomo, Stelter commended the “power of the internet” for holding Williams accountable when he misrepresented the truth in terms of his Iraq experience. “I don’t think he apology went far enough,” he said, “because he’s not explaining the rest of what happened.
In his 60-second on air apology Wednesday night, Williams only referenced the false story he told last week on NBC Nightly News about getting shot down by an RPG in Iraq. He did not mention that he has told the same story in elaborate detail over the years to David Letterman, Alec Baldwin and others.
Watch video below, via CNN:
[Photo via screengrab]
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