I was piling on Brian Williams like everybody else when I had a tiny flash of insight.
• Have I ever stretched the truth about my exploits as a foreign correspondent?
• Have I ever fudged a bit about the dangers I faced on the front lines of the Honduras-El Salvador war?
• Did I ever get a free drink from a colleague when recounting the horrors I saw after Hurricane Fifi?
Guilty of all the above, and more.
I stretched the truth in watering holes from Tijuana to Asuncion and most of the reporters I have known did so, too.
The stories about my work as a reporter that I post here are all true. The details are just as I remember them. But if we sit down together and start swapping war stories I might get “confused” and take some dramatic license.
So I guess I am as guilty as Brian Williams.
Except my tall tales were shared with a few drinking buddies, not with a nationwide television audience.
And AP didn't pay me $10 million a year to do it.
