Brian Williams Claims He Saw RPG Fired At Helicopter In Front of His (2007) — Transcript

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1. 0:09Brian Williams the long-standing anchor
2. 0:12of NBC's nightly news came to fairfield
3. 0:15university's regina a quick center to
4. 0:17speak to the students faculty and
5. 0:18members of the fairfield community news
6. 0:2164 was able to get an interview with the
7. 0:23award-winning journalist before he began
8. 0:25his sold-out speech first off let me
9. 0:28just start by asking you what you plan
10. 0:29to address the students faculty and
11. 0:32fairfield community about today i think
12. 0:34i'll talk about our times i think i'll
13. 0:36talk about the challenge of the coming
14. 0:38year i think i'll talk about what I do
15. 0:41for a living who I am my my background
16. 0:45how it differs from a lot of the people
17. 0:47who will be in the audience today I
18. 0:49failed to graduate from college I happen
19. 0:53to work in an industry where that
20. 0:55credential isn't necessary all the time
21. 0:59for advancement I mean you look at
22. 1:02Cronkite and Jennings two of the great
23. 1:04names in my line of work also failed to
24. 1:06graduate from college so in my line of
25. 1:10work reading is everything knowledge is
26. 1:13everything I think there's a huge
27. 1:17confusion right now a lot of people are
28. 1:19confusing information with knowledge
29. 1:22we're no smarter a society because we
30. 1:25have the internet we have a ton of
31. 1:27information I don't think we're any more
32. 1:30learn it so I think these are some of
33. 1:32the points that will come out today and
34. 1:34I have these two very sharp
35. 1:35interrogators who are going to try to
36. 1:38pin me down and make a complete fool out
37. 1:41of me with my answers mr. Williams
38. 1:44you've traveled all over the world and
39. 1:45covered countless stories and you've
40. 1:48received many honors and awards for
41. 1:50these stories in the past couple of
42. 1:53years which trip or story that you
43. 1:55covered has had the biggest impact on
44. 1:57your life I think that is you know I
45. 1:59that makes me it gets me to thinking I
46. 2:02I've been very very lucky the way my
47. 2:04life has turned out I've been very lucky
48. 2:06to have survived a few things that I've
49. 2:08been involved in at a reception a few
50. 2:11minutes ago I was remembering
51. 2:13thing I tend to forget the war with
52. 2:15hezbollah in israel a few years back
53. 2:17where there were katusha rockets passing
54. 2:21just underneath the helicopter i was
55. 2:23riding in a few years before that you go
56. 2:25back to Iraq and I looked down the tube
57. 2:27of an RPG that had been fired at us and
58. 2:30it hit the chopper in front of hours and
59. 2:33I'm so fortunate to be sitting here but
60. 2:37I think of all the stories in the past
61. 2:39few years I think without dispute it was
62. 2:42Katrina because I was there for it we
63. 2:45flew down the night before and I was
64. 2:48inside the Superdome for the hurricane I
65. 2:51wrote it out with the people inside the
66. 2:52Superdome not all the people i was with
67. 2:54lived and they weren't killed by the
68. 2:58hurricane I think it's fair to say they
69. 3:01were killed by the botched response to
70. 3:03it so it to grow up loving this country
71. 3:07as I still do having such great faith in
72. 3:10this country to then see us just fall
73. 3:13apart we fell apart in that storm and
74. 3:15there's probably a number of reasons for
75. 3:18it but I was there to bear witness we
76. 3:21beat the first responders to Katrina
77. 3:23because we were there early and it was
78. 3:26quite an event in my life last year you
79. 3:29joined vano to travel to africa to
80. 3:31report on the major major issues that
81. 3:33the people that are facing a few weeks
82. 3:36ago here Nicholas Kristof in the new
83. 3:38york times you have to speak about the
84. 3:40genocide in Darfur and while there are
85. 3:42journalists like Chris offs that are
86. 3:44addressing the genocide and informing
87. 3:46the public about the atrocities their
88. 3:48most it seems that most of the American
89. 3:51press have not covered the issue in its
90. 3:53entirety do you think that the media is
91. 3:55partly to blame for America's lack of
92. 3:57interest in Jennifer yeah I think it's a
93. 4:00terrific question first of all Nick
94. 4:02Kristof has cited a co-worker of mine
95. 4:04and curry who has taken it upon herself
96. 4:06fearless Lee this is a woman with
97. 4:09children and a family who goes over to
98. 4:12Darfur and has risked her life to report
99. 4:14from there I think it's a very fair
100. 4:18question it's a chicken and an egg
101. 4:20proposition really some great reporting
102. 4:24is going on and a tiny audience is
103. 4:28we realize that we reach about 10
104. 4:30million people a night and that's about
105. 4:33the largest news audience there is left
106. 4:35anywhere so we try to we tried it's very
107. 4:41expensive and it's very costly and it's
108. 4:43very dangerous when I go to Iraq as I
109. 4:45have four times I have to volunteer for
110. 4:48it no one sends me I raise my hand when
111. 4:52I raise my hand recently and wanted to
112. 4:54make my fifth trip in october i have a
113. 4:57co-worker named tom brokaw who thought
114. 4:59that was a bad idea and he told me so
115. 5:02and so I canceled the trip I didn't want
116. 5:06you know once he said don't go I don't
117. 5:08think it's safe right now that totally
118. 5:10jinxed it for me and what was I going to
119. 5:11do look my wife in the eye and say no it
120. 5:13would be fine we don't have a problem
121. 5:16with going to dangerous places a lot of
122. 5:19us consider that our jobs but i think
123. 5:22this and i hope we do talk about this
124. 5:24very question this crux between if we
125. 5:27air it will people pay attention we
126. 5:31can't allow ourselves to be driven by
127. 5:33public tastes all the time i I've had
128. 5:36people say to me no one's going to watch
129. 5:38that no one cares and that's a cancerous
130. 5:41deadly awful thing to say in a newsroom
131. 5:45because as you know when you were being
132. 5:49raised by your parents a balanced meal
133. 5:51contains stuff that we don't all like I
134. 5:55think lima beans are hideous but they
135. 5:57evidently contain great things and into
136. 6:01all lives come meals containing lima
137. 6:03beans I learned as a young kid growing
138. 6:06up in New Jersey so you know you got to
139. 6:09have your ear lima beans along with a
140. 6:10balanced meal we try to we try to put
141. 6:13things in the newscast that you read in
142. 6:15the New York Times every day you read in
143. 6:17your local paper that balance it out and
144. 6:19sometimes they're not pretty they're not
145. 6:21pleasant but they reflect our world some
146. 6:24people feel that journalists in the
147. 6:26media dropped the ball when it came to
148. 6:27the invasion with Iraq because of this
149. 6:29some feel that the media have become
150. 6:32more of a lap dog than a watchdog for
151. 6:34the government what you have to say
152. 6:36about this and how our journalists
153. 6:37trying to work to regain this trust
154. 6:40first of all promise me if it's your
155. 6:42career goal that you will do what I do
156. 6:44for a living because you're very good at
157. 6:45this here second I think everyone in my
158. 6:50line of work has to admit that we all
159. 6:52collectively dropped a ball but I'd ask
160. 6:55everyone to go back and look at the
161. 6:56tapes and pull the newspaper clippings
162. 6:58we had just been hit harder than Pearl
163. 7:00Harbor there was a you had dan Rather
164. 7:05crying on David leather letterman you
165. 7:07had Jay Leno unable to contain his
166. 7:09emotions these are the people who
167. 7:11entertain us at night these are the
168. 7:13people who were going to give us
169. 7:15permission to laugh again Rudolph
170. 7:17Giuliani had to go on Saturday Night
171. 7:18Live and say it's okay for New York to
172. 7:21laugh again we were badly hurt and so
173. 7:23the president in a way was handed a kind
174. 7:25of sentimental blank check we just said
175. 7:29goat would do whatever you go get these
176. 7:31bad guys and go find them and do what
177. 7:34you've got to do and uh it's much easier
178. 7:39for me to cover Katrina and say we're up
179. 7:43to our keisters in water and where is
180. 7:46FEMA and where are the supplies I
181. 7:48couldn't do that in Iraq with weapons
182. 7:50inspectors and no unaffiliated reporters
183. 7:53allowed over there I couldn't go to the
184. 7:55desert as I have and say we're not
185. 7:58finding any of these WMDs when you're
186. 8:01talking about mobile labs when Colin
187. 8:03Powell gives the speech he gave before
188. 8:05the UN that was a disincentive to ask a
189. 8:09lot of questions I think it'll be looked
190. 8:11on as one of the great media failures
191. 8:13but I also think it's much easier to say
192. 8:17in the rearview mirror than it was then
193. 8:20for new 64 I'm Emily fitzmorris