The worst media disaster of February 2015

It’s difficult to think of a high-profile American journalist whose career toppled faster and harder than “NBC Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams. (Dan Rather’s resignation under fire comes to mind, but he was in third place at the time, not first, and had already weathered several strange incidents.)

Williams, who admitted to “misremembering” being shot down while covering the Iraq war, was quickly challenged about other inaccuracies, including claims of seeing dead bodies and contracting dysentery after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and observing a missile fly directly beneath his helicopter while covering the Israel-Hezbollah war.

The moment I’m calling the worst media disaster of the month is Williams’ insufficient and glib on-air apology, which only added fuel to his reputational crisis (Williams reportedly later admitted to colleagues that he knew his apology was lame.) ​