Why don't more journalists face the music like NBC's Brian Williams?

Say what you will about NBC’s handling of anchorman Brian Williams’s serial untruth-telling, but at least acknowledge this: Williams was suspended for six months without pay for his behavior and then lost his job over it. Or his main job, in any case.

Williams’s demotion to MSNBC for what NBC daintily called his “inaccurate” statements is practically the death penalty as these things go. Other high-profile journalists who have admitted their ethical sins have walked away with far more limited sanctions, or no sanctions at all. No suspensions, no firings, no sit-downs with Matt Lauer to confess, as Williams did, how painful his screw-ups have been to him. Beyond some sweaty but transitory moments of public shame, there hasn’t been much in the way of discipline.

George Stephanopoulos, Bill O’Reilly, Fareed Zakaria, the gang at Rolling Stone magazine — all have faced Williams-like turns in the barrel. And all have emerged perhaps chastened but very much steady as they go.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/news-analysis-why-dont-more-journalists-face-the-music-like-brian-williams/2015/06/19/efe64854-1685-11e5-89f3-61410da94eb1_story.html?hpid=z5