Dueling Scandals: Rolling Stone, Brian Williams, and Repairing a Damaged Paradigm

ABSTRACT

This study examined how journalists defended their profession during simultaneous ethics scandals involving Rolling Stone magazine and NBC news anchor Brian Williams. A review of more than 2,000 stories revealed that they responded to Rolling Stone magazine’s disputed rape story in a manner consistent with traditional paradigm repair, employing elaborate strategies such as shifting the blame to rogue journalists and prescribing corrective action. Journalists failed to do this after Williams’ false statements about being on a helicopter that crashed in Iraq, and largely ignored the news segment that ignited the scandal, instead focusing on his appearances on entertainment shows.