Ethics And Credibility In Business Communication

Ethics and Credibility in Business Communication
Kelly Ann Bose
COM/295
July 13, 2015
Dr. Christopher DeClerk
Ethics and Credibility in Business Communication
Brian Williams is the news anchor for NBC’s Nightly News but recently was replaced by Lester Holt due to his four month suspension for exaggerating his experiences during a helicopter attack in Iraq, according to two people briefed on the decision. Brian Williams will have a new position at NBC News primarily at the cable news network MSNBC which will probably be in a breaking news capacity. The new role can be viewed as a humbling comedown for Brian Williams who before the controversy was one of the country’s most prominent and respected broadcast journalists. One point of contention
during the negotiations over his new role at the network was the extent to which Brian Williams would apologize for the controversy.
Brian Williams was riding high as the number one nightly news anchor, drawing close to 10 million viewers a night. His popularity extended beyond the anchor’s chair; his quick wit and engaging manner made him a coveted speaker at dinners and panels and a frequent celebrity guest on entertainment shows. But on his newscast on February 4, 2015, Brian Williams admitted that he had embellished his account of being on a helicopter that was hit by enemy fire in 2003 and apologized to viewers. The response put him and NBC on the defensive; military veterans took him to task, and media commentators and viewers claimed he had lost the trust so critical to a network news anchor. On February 10, 2015, Brian Williams was suspended for six months without pay.
The controversy escalated to the top of the corporation with Stephen B Burke, NBC Universal’s Chief Executive playing a crucial role in deciding Brian Williams’s fate according to people with knowledge of those deliberations.
Also, closely involved was Mr. Lack, who was the president of NBC News from 1993 to 2001. Mr. Lack is known to be close with Brian Williams and his hiring was viewed as a signal that NBC was trying to figured out a way to keep Brian Williams at the network in some capacity. Almost immediately after the controversy erupted, NBC opened an investigation into Brian Williams, led by Richard Esposito, the Senior Executive Producer for investigations over the last several months it uncovered 10 to 12 instances in which he was thought to have exaggerated or fabricated accounts of his
reporting.
Television industry executives said that it would have been difficult for Brian Williams to return to the anchor chair because he had lost the trust not only of viewers but also the people in NBC’s newsroom.
When the scandal first emerged many media executive inside and outside the company had thought it was untenable for him to remain with the company. Industry executives said the decision most likely involved more than journalistic ethics, with hundreds of millions of advertising dollars at stake. NBC News is in a fierce competition with rival news groups for ratings, which affects how advertisers allocate their dollars. NBC generated $200 million in ad sales for its evening news broadcast in 2013, according to Kantar Media.

Conclusion
The crisis surrounding Brian Williams’s embellishments was another blow for an NBC News division dealing with problems on several fronts. In the past year, it has shaken up its senior management ranks, replaced David Gregory as the host of “Meet the Press” and firing an executive hired to oversee the “Today” show after only 10 weeks. Those will be issues Mr. Lack will address, along with MSNBC, now the decision on Brian Williams’s role has been made.
References
Steel, E, Koblin, J., & Somaiya, R. Brian Williams to Stay at NBC, but Not as News Anchor. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://nyti.ms/1JZ696N.
Stelter, B. Brian Williams expected to stay at NBC. CNN Money. http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/17/media/brian-williams-nbc/