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Common Core State Standard
SL.CCS.1/2/3/4 Grades 6-12: An essay of a current news event is provided for discussion to encourage participation, but also inspire the use of evidence to support logical claims using the main ideas of the article. Students must analyze background information provided about a current event within the news, draw out the main ideas and key details, and review different opinions on the issue. Then, students should present their own claims using facts and analysis for support. FOR THE WEEK OF FEB. 16, 2015 Career setback for NBC anchor Brian Williams: Memory slip or deliberate war coverage fibs?![]() ![]() Look for a news update or commentary on this topic and share what one or more people say.
![]() Find coverage of another prominent person and tell why you would or wouldn't want to be in the same position.
![]() Now pick different reporting on TV or the news business and summarize it.
Instead of delivering the news on NBC each night, Brian Williams is at the center of a developing story. He's being punished and investigated by his bosses for telling exaggerated or made-up stories about himself. The network last week suspended its star anchor for six months without pay while it looks into the matter and figures out whether he'll come back. It all started with an on-air admission Feb. 4 about a false description recently of a 2003 experience while covering the Iraq War. "I want to apologize. I said I was traveling in an aircraft that was hit by RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] fire. I was instead in a following aircraft," Williams told viewers. New reports question his truthfulness on other events, including New Orleans hurricane coverage in 2005. Discussions of the situation include explanations about unreliable recall and how storytellers may bend events. Scientific studies show that memories can fade, shift and distort over time. In addition to alterations to real memories, completely new "false memories" can be embedded so firmly that we feel they happened. "Are they just stories that get better in the retelling, as humans tend to do?" Kathleen Parker writes in the Washington Post about Williams’ case. "Whether one is hit or not, surely the terror of flying where rockets are near can magnify and distort events." A harsher theory comes from author Bernie Goldberg on Fox News: "Celebrities . . . make up stories because in the United States of entertainment, being uninteresting is the greatest sin."
Front Page Talking Points is written by
Alan Stamm for NIEonline.com, Copyright 2024
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