( CNN ) Walter Cronkite had a golden rule for all wartime reporters : never self-aggrandize . Even though Cronkite had been the first reporter to fly over the beaches at Normandy on June 6 , 1944 , he minimized the experience . When asked decades later whether he had flown over Utah or Omaha Beach , Cronkite shrugged . `` I think it was Omaha , '' he said . `` We did n't know about those names then , of course . All I knew was the beach . I did n't even know how extensive the landings were . '' Such self-deprecating responses regarding his own WWII experiences became de rigueur for Cronkite . He gained credibility by dialing back his valor . Considered the `` Dean of the Allied Air War , '' for going on U.S. bombing missions over Nazi Germany , Cronkite , a reporter for the United Press , insisted he was nothing more than a nervous-nelly fly-on-the-wall . Although Cronkite had once crash landed in a Dutch potato field under enemy fire , he chose instead to focus on celebrating the liberation of the Netherlands at the hands of the Free Dutch . `` They pelted us with tulips until our car was fender deep in them , '' Cronkite recalled . `` Tulips are heavy flowers . In bundles they are dangerous . The only blood I spilled in the war was that day -- hit by a bunch of tulips tied together with a piece of wire . '' Cronkite was Brian Williams 's all-seasons ' hero , and Williams was one of the heirs apparent to the Cronkite tradition . `` I was a Cronkite groupie by the age of 6 , '' Williams once told me . '' `` At our household , dinner was hinged on Walter 's saying 'And that 's the way it is . ' Only then could the meal get served . That was the mid-1960s , and I continued to travel with him from the age of polyester to the age of his ever-thickening sideburns and beyond . '' Cronkite , however , retired from CBS News in 1981 , just as cable TV was beginning to blossom . For Williams to be the Cronkite of the Internet Age on NBC News , he had to be dramatic , not steady ; pithy , not `` aw shucks '' ; au courant , not a throwback to the days of Lowell Thomas . Everybody trusted Cronkite because he reminded them of their favorite uncle or trusted family physician . Being square in the age of the Beatles made Cronkite retro cool . Williams , at his heart , is the broadcast news nerd extraordinaire -- everybody 's friendly neighborhood TV news anchorman writ large . At his worst he doubles as a multimedia showman , the class clown , eliciting laughs by lampooning his own nightly news straight-man act . What Williams has accomplished with this progressive strategy -- a postmodern approach to the patriarchal voice-of-God news anchor -- is to prove that he is n't a stuffed shirt , that he is self-deprecating like Cronkite . Media critics have lauded Williams ' two-act juggle : serious newsman and surprisingly funny clown . But what Williams failed to consider was that death -- in either war ( Iraq ) or national disaster ( Katrina ) -- should n't have a showman front and center . Ernest Hemingway learned from hunting that one should never milk death or drown it in a sea of verbiage . Being solemn always trumps being out in front in a battle zone . What 's important to know about Williams , why he deserves a second chance , is that he is a fine broadcast journalist . Like Cronkite after the Tet Offensive of 1968 , Williams gets on the airplane , travels to danger zones , ad-libs for hours on end seldom making a gaffe . As a TV journalist , he is a pro . When Williams brings himself into the narrative , however , when he goes on `` David Letterman '' or `` The Daily Show '' or babbles to Michael Eisner , the showman overruns the reporter . When you sit around a campfire telling ghost stories , you want the audience to lean forward ( the slogan of MSNBC ) , to be utterly captivated by every detail . The more embellishment the better . But Iraq and Katrina are all too real for that . I interviewed Williams about his New Orleans experiences for my book `` The Great Deluge . '' His personal narrative was riveting . Give him credit for breaking a dozen news stories during those dark days in 2005 . Online allegations now rage that Williams fabricated what he saw and experienced in post-Katrina New Orleans . That is unfair to him . Everything was helter-skelter in the Gulf South , and Williams did a public service by trying to make sense of the post-hurricane situation . Williams did have a dysentery-like condition ( if not textbook dysentery ) , which he explained in an interview I did shortly after the Category 3 hurricane hit . `` I could n't keep anything down , '' he said . `` That whole night was hazy . I could n't get clarity of mind . '' Overall , his reporting of the post-Katrina events is credible . Nevertheless , Williams-as-showman very well may have embellished or conflated or compressed some of the on-the-ground , in-the-moment facts , but it 's silly now to nitpick whether the dead body he saw was on Canal Street or Claiborne Avenue . It is clear that Williams needs to apologize more profusely , to set the record straight once and for all -- but only once , and for good -- for his Iraq fabrication and to clarify details about his Katrina experience . He needs to stay off the comedy shows for a while and to stop talking about himself . There is an Japanese adage that the nail that stands the tallest gets hammered down . Williams ' hazing has made him right-sized . But enough is enough . The public needs hardworking newsmen like Williams as a matter of trust , of public good . If Cronkite were placed under the same digital media microscope , he 'd look smaller than we remembered . The public should n't lose faith in Williams as a journalist , but it is all right for us to shout loudly in his ears , `` It 's not about you ! '' The superhighway of celebrity and showmanship is filled with debris . Tuesday night , NBC News decided to suspend Williams for six months without pay . That seems about right . Maybe Williams needed to be reminded of which role -- newsman or showman -- was most important , which ball to favor in his juggling act . It is a fact that Cronkite knew all too well : sometimes a little tuliping in a war zone goes farther than a tale of looking down the tube of an RPG .
Douglas Brinkley says Williams should have followed Roosevelt 's golden rule for all reporters : never self - aggrandize . He says the reporters got tripped up when he promised to also be a showman .