Brit Hume Leaves a Question Mark on Honesty in Journalism and Friendship

In one sense Brit Hume did an honorable thing in standing up for his friend, Brian Williams.

You should care about your friends and stand up for them when they are unjustly accused (or at least you think they are unjustly accused). But, in standing up for his friend the way he did, Hume denigrated the seriousness of honesty in journalism and perhaps did harm to his friend.

Certainly a liar can be a likable person. But admirable and a good guy?

If you have a friend (or spouse or child) who lies, is it best to downgrade the seriousness of that? Tell them and others that they are admirable and good? Or might it be better to say to them and others involved: This is serious. It is bad. It needs to be repented of and stopped. Especially gratuitous lying.

One can imagine someone lying under the pressure of loss of a job, possibility of going to jail or being divorced. That's bad on the liar and those lied to. But, lying just to gain attention? Or help derail a candidate you don't especially like? Or make a tragedy seem even more serious than it was? That should be decried by all who are serious about journalism and truth.

Brit Hume and Brian Williams
(from newyorksocialdiary.com)

More important to a friend than Brian Williams' career should be Williams' character. The strange thing is that when people are caught doing bad things and they really do apologize, instead of hiding or downplaying what they did, most people readily forgive them and even give them back some trust. Often they can salvage both character and career.

"I hope he overcomes this." is a good thing to say as far as it goes. But, if Brit Hume wants to be a really good friend to Brian Williams, he should encourage Williams to make a deep change in his character. Aristotle truly said that friendship based on both people being committed to virtue is the best kind, and only lasting kind, of friendship.

Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good themselves. Now those who wish well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of own nature and not incidentally; therefore their friendship lasts as long as they are good-and goodness is an enduring thing. And each is good without qualification and to his friend, for the good are both good without qualification and useful to each other. (Nichomachean Ethics, Book VIII, ch. 3, paragraph 3)