Becky addresses Brian Williams' fall from grace, relies on memories she swears are accurate

By limiting the amount of television I watched as a child, my parents instilled in me the early belief that "being famous" was equivalent to "being on the evening news."  It is for this reason that I have such clear memories of Brian Williams inheriting NBC Nightly News at the retirement of Tom Brokaw - his journalism prowess was an intensely discussed topic over many, many dinners in my youth.

Years before Brokaw stepped down, my mother ominously remarked that Williams would surely replace him, but, "I don't know that he's got what it takes.  I just don't know."  (Dad remained neutral on the subject.)

In recent days, conventional wisdom suggests she's been proven right.

The more things change, the more they stay the same: last weekend, Mom interrupted me in the midst of an angst-filled phone call to say, "Becky, I don't mean to change the subject but I need to mention Brian Williams before I forget."

(Because, you see, sometimes people do indeed forget.)

Look, in the interest of honesty, I would never put it past Brian Williams to amp up the storytelling.  There's a streak of entertainer in him that has been pushing the boundaries of news for years.

The other side of it is what my college roommate, Kathryn, and I were texting back and forth about earlier (living with me as long as she did, she can attest to just how big a role NBC Nightly News played in my developmental years). 

She was all, "PBS and NOVA posted some articles about memory..." and I was all, "I've been really interested in the plasticity of memory for a while..."  [We're the type of people who talk about NOVA and throw around words like "plasticity" in text messages.]

And there's truth in that, too.

Whatever the real story, I'm not sure Brian's going to bounce back from this.

And now Jon Stewart is following Stephen Colbert and stepping down from the fake news business.

And this morning, Zeke Logan from the Drake and Zeke show died.

And just like that, every source of news that I trust is gone.

Image yanked from HuffPo.