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Getbig Main Boards => Politics and Political Issues Board => Topic started by: Soul Crusher on October 21, 2010, 05:00:28 AM
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NPR Ends Analyst’s Contract After Comments on Muslims (Juan Williams)
New York Times ^ | October 20, 2010
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NPR has terminated its contract with Juan Williams, one of its senior news analysts, after he made comments about Muslims on the Fox News Channel. NPR said in a statement that it gave Mr. Williams notice of his termination on Wednesday night. The move came after Mr. Williams, who is also a Fox News political analyst, appeared on the “The O’Reilly Factor” on Monday. On the show, the host, Bill O’Reilly, asked him to respond to the notion that the United States was facing a “Muslim dilemma.” Mr. O’Reilly said, “The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet.”
Mr. Williams said he concurred with Mr. O’Reilly.
He continued: “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
Mr. Williams also made reference to the Pakistani immigrant who pleaded guilty this month to trying to plant a car bomb in Times Square. “He said the war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts,” Mr. Williams said.
NPR said in its statement that the remarks “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”
The public radio organization said it thanked him for many years of service. Mr. Williams did not immediately respond on Wednesday night to an e-mail seeking comment...
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
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More tolerance, open mindedness, and respect for different views from the far left. ::) ::)
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Good for Juan!
Even though he is a liberal, I have a lot of respect for the man because he doesn't dance around issues to avoid offending people. It looks like Muslims get more cred with the far left than the brothers these days. The fact that they would fire him over something so patently unoffensive and logical is a sad commentary on the level that the left is willing to stoop in order to satiate it's endless appetite for political correctness.
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Good for Juan!
Even though he is a liberal, I have a lot of respect for the man because he doesn't dance around issues to avoid offending people. It looks like Muslims get more cred with the far left than the brothers these days. The fact that they would fire him over something so patently unoffensive and logical is a sad commentary on the level that the left is willing to stoop in order to satiate it's endless appetite for political correctness.
Funny that they never attacked Jesse Jackson when he said he is more afraid of blacks than whites when he walks down the street. ::)
And on DU and HP they are attacking Juan.
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Can you imagine our tax money pays for that pile of shit to be on the air/Of course,because if they had to compete ,they would go the way of Air America,CNN and MSNBC total ratings dissasters.
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Amazing how when someone speaks their mind, and it is was absolutely HIS opinion, he gets fired because the left loons don't agree with him. They are just sooooo open minded.....as long as you aren't religious, are pro gay marriage, or anything else that fits their close minded view of the world.
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It's amazing how much the far-left hates the first amendment. They really do give a bad name to people who lean left but don't embrace their Utopian view of the world.
Apologist leftists are the first ones to probably think "terrorist" when they see a Muslim decked out in religious garb take a seat on the same plane as them.
I don't see what's bad about what he said? When Buddhist monks or Catholic priests start blowing planes out of the sky then maybe people will start looking at them oddly, too. ::)
Amazing how when someone speaks their mind, and it is was absolutely HIS opinion, he gets fired because the left loons don't agree with him. They are just sooooo open minded.....as long as you aren't religious Christian or Jewish, are pro gay marriage, or anything else that fits their close minded view of the world.
Fixed. :D
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Just go look at DU, the site where Blacken, Benny, and the others get their crappola. They are savaging Juan over this.
The far left does not agree with the concept of free speech. They are for speech that only says "America sucks, we are evil, racist, and bigoted, free everything all all, kill the rich" etc etc.
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Fixed. :D
So true.....sadly.
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So true.....sadly.
I was watching TV last night and they had that luntz focus group discussing BOR, and some fat slob freaked out when someone agreed with BORs' statement.
"I have met the enemy and he is us!"
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Check out the trash over here.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4582174
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Check out the trash over here.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4582174
What a classy bunch. Talk about turning on someone just because he utilized his 1st Amend right...
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What a classy bunch. Talk about turning on someone just because he utilized his 1st Amend right...
DU - a.k.a - the DUmpster is the heart of leftism and the meeting place for the far left circus show.
This is where Blacken get 100% of his stuff.
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Good comments from everyone-- but what I can't fathom for the life of me, is how reactionary the left becomes is when it feels that it's imaginary view of the world is threatened. When it comes to ignoring human nature, stifling individualism and towing the company line, the left will actively censor its own allies and throw them under the bus.
This is the same ideology that doesn't believe blacks can be racists, allowed Robert Byrd to be honored and exalted and cherry picks who and when someone ought to be branded a racist. Racial quotas, the fairness doctrine, and on and on-- It's an endless parade of deliberate injustices and contradictions bereft of coherency except with the self congratulatory delusion that the bullshit they pull is for the betterment of humanity.
No matter what anyone says or thinks of the right, it is examples like this one that exemplify why I would never become a democrat and why I have an inherent disgust for liberals. All politicians are low life's in my opinion-- but I sleep better at night knowing which brand of lowlifes I am associated with.
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Here is Juan Williams' response.
http://www.thehopeforamerica.com/play.php?id=5557
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It's unbelievable that someone can lose their job over "controversial" remarks. NPR is the one looking foolish for their overreaction. We all feel nervous when there's a group of Arabs on our plane, but we're not suppose to talk about it because we might hurt their feelings. ::)
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It's unbelievable that someone can lose their job over "controversial" remarks. NPR is the one looking foolish for their overreaction. We all feel nervous when there's a group of Arabs on our plane, but we're not suppose to talk about it because we might hurt their feelings. ::)
When I am in the street or on a bus or plane I will stare one of these mofos right down no problem at all. And yes, when i am going on the plane - my first thought is who is most likely to start shit and who i am going to attack and with what weapons, whether it be with a pen, book, food cart, etc.
screw that shit - i will have not a seconds' hesitation with brutally attacking any dirtbag putting my ass in jeopordy.
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When I am in the street or on a bus or plane I will stare one of these mofos right down no problem at all. And yes, when i am going on the plane - my first thought is who is most likely to start shit and who i am going to attack and with what weapons, whether it be with a pen, book, food cart, etc.
screw that shit - i will have not a seconds' hesitation with brutally attacking any dirtbag putting my ass in jeopordy.
Can you imagine sitting next to one? If he flinched I would sink my thumb so far in his eye they could lift fingerprints off his retina.
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Can you imagine sitting next to one? If he flinched I would sink my thumb so far in his eye they could lift fingerprints off his retina.
True - in my self defense class - we deal a lot with crap like this, throat strikes, eye gouges, etc. I have my eyes trained on these mofos like a laser and they often know it.
I always make sure i have a pen, broken CD, loose change, or something on me on a plane or bus or subway.
I go to areas on the subway in NYC and trust me - you learn how to deal with this crap real quick.
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True - in my self defense class - we deal a lot with crap like this, throat strikes, eye gouges, etc. I have my eyes trained on these mofos like a laser and they often know it.
I always make sure i have a pen, broken CD, loose change, or something on me on a plane or bus or subway.
I go to areas on the subway in NYC and trust me - you learn how to deal with this crap real quick.
Another great one are a set of car keys. Just put the butt of the biggest key in the palm of your hand with the key sticking straight out of your palm.....ah, the memories of cc training with Marines....haha
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Another great one are a set of car keys. Just put the butt of the biggest key in the palm of your hand with the key sticking straight out of your palm.....ah, the memories of cc training with Marines....haha
My instructor did 2 tours in Afghanistan, 2 in Iraq, 1 in the original Gulf War, the other 30 years as a NYC Cop and detective - we get real deal stuff in our class.
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My instructor did 2 tours in Afghanistan, 2 in Iraq, 1 in the original Gulf War, the other 30 years as a NYC Cop and detective - we get real deal stuff in our class.
Thats the way mine ended up being. I was part of the auxillary security force in Iceland and the guys teaching us most of our stuff were combat vet marines. They cut out so much crap.
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Well, well. Looks like the tentacles of the terrorist-financing, pro-Sharia jihad group CAIR are responsible for getting Williams canned. Why this group is still allowed to operate in the US is beyond me.
From Robert Spencer:
It turns out that NPR fired Williams after CAIR sent out a national press release in which CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said this about Williams' statements: "Such irresponsible and inflammatory comments would not be tolerated if they targeted any other racial, ethnic or religious minority, and they should not pass without action by NPR."
And NPR hurried to appease this thuggish Hamas-linked group.
Everyone's favorite stomach-stapled beekeeper, Ibrahim "Honest Ibe" Hooper of CAIR, was just on Fox, defending his takedown of Williams (while denying that CAIR demanded that he be fired), playing the victim card and hectoring Meghan Kelly, demanding to know if she agreed with Williams. (Kelly stood her ground magnificently.) In the course of things he said, "Everyone is accountable for what they say."
Is that so, Ibe? So I guess you're accountable for saying this, eh? "I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future."
Anyway, it's bad enough that NPR would with such alacrity do the bidding of a group like CAIR, but it's even worse that Williams' rather commonplace remarks are being represented as some terrible "demonizing" of all Muslims. He said that he gets nervous on a plane when he sees people in Muslim garb. Even though the 9/11 hijackers and others did not wear Muslim garb, there are many other Islamic jihadists who have worn it, and all of the jihadists have explained and justified their actions by reference to Islamic texts and teachings. No Islamic sect or school of jurisprudence worldwide, meanwhile, has renounced the jihad against unbelievers or the imperative to impose Sharia upon them.
Are there Muslims who are not waging jihad against unbelievers? Of course. But the unwillingness of the Islamic community in the U.S. and Europe to back up its protestations of condemnation of terror with real action to root out the jihad ideology from its ranks makes it impossible to determine whether or not any given Muslim is an Islamic supremacist, or a jihadist.
Is this to "demonize" all Muslims? Of course not. But if Honest Ibe Hooper and his ilk are really not wanting Muslims to be demonized, instead of inviting that "demonization" so they can use it to claim victim status and wring more concessions out of a compliant politically correct media establishment, they could have reacted to Juan Williams' by recognizing that if anyone gets nervous when seeing people in Muslim garb, it is the fault of the Muslims who have committed acts of violence in the name of Islam. And they could begin honest, genuine efforts to root out the jihad doctrine and Islamic supremacism from their communities.
But they don't. Now, why is that?
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More "free speech for me, but not for thee"
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FIXED News seeped to into his brain cells. :-\
Buh-bye, Juan!
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FIXED News seeped to into his brain cells. :-\
Buh-bye, Juan!
So you disagree with what he said? Or his right to say it?
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FIXED News seeped to into his brain cells. :-\
Buh-bye, Juan!
I suppose that if he had spit water melon seeds at the screen, grabbed his genetalia and proudly proclaimed that White men wearing flannel shirts in pickup trucks make him nervous because of all da bad things dah white man dun did to the poor colored folk, you would be recommending him for a peabody award?
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FIXED News seeped to into his brain cells. :-\
Buh-bye, Juan!
Typical far left kneepadder.
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Typical far left kneepadder.
(http://i40.tinypic.com/hsnjpt.gif)
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(http://i40.tinypic.com/hsnjpt.gif)
Is that the best you can do asswipe?
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Is that the best you can do asswipe?
Well, he is mentally challenged...
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Is that the best you can do asswipe?
It pretty well sums it up, PEA BRAIN.
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Well, I have yet to challenge Billy mentally...
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It pretty well sums it up, PEA BRAIN.
Right only a far left kook like yourself could agree with Juan getting fired.
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Right only a far left kook like yourself could agree with Juan getting fired.
Oh, Archie!
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Oh, Archie!
::) ::)
I have seen no one by the far left crazies like yourself support this.
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::) ::)
I have seen no one by the far left crazies like yourself support this.
Spelling and grammar skills on par as usual today, PEA BRAIN.
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NPR CEO: Williams' Views Should Stay Between Himself And 'His Psychiatrist' (Apology from CEO!)
NPR ^ | 10/21/10 | MARK MEMMOTT
Update at 3:30 p.m. ET. NPR CEO Vivian Schiller just released this statement:
"I spoke hastily and I apologize to Juan and others for my thoughtless remark."
That follows, as you'll see below, her comment earlier today that now-former NPR news analyst Juan Williams should have kept his feelings about Muslims between himself and "his psychiatrist or his publicist."[/color]
(Excerpt) Read more at npr.org ...
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this has backfired on npr in to a p.r. nightmare.
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this has backfired on npr in to a p.r. nightmare.
Yep.
NPR Under Fire After Canning Juan Williams
Published October 21, 2010 | FoxNews.com
News analyst Juan Williams' firing from National Public Radio for comments he made about being nervous when flying alongside devout Muslims has sparked a public outcry that includes calls for investigations and a cut in public funding to the broadcaster.
"I think the U.S. Congress should investigate NPR and consider cutting off their money," said Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is also a Fox News contributor
Gingrich called the firing "an act of total censorship."
"I think the whole idea that if you honestly say how you feel about Islam -- what he said was very balanced, people should read what he actually said -- the idea that that's the excuse for National Public Radio to censor Juan Williams is an outrage and every listener of NPR should be enraged that there's this kind of bias against an American," Gingrich said.
NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller sent an internal memo Thursday seeking to clarify why Williams' contract was terminated, claiming that the remarks he made on Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" weren't the only problem -- he was canned because he's become a pundit rather than an analyst.
"Juan's comments on Fox violated our standards as well as our values and offended many in doing so," Schiller wrote in the memo, obtained by Fox News.
"This isn't the first time we have had serious concerns about some of Juan's public comments," she wrote. "Despite many conversations and warnings over the years, Juan continued to violate this principal (sic).
Speaking at the Atlanta Press Club Thursday, Schiller defended the firing, saying Williams should keep his feelings about Muslims between him and "his psychiatrist or his publicist."
Williams told Fox News that he was fired Wednesday by Ellen Weiss, NPR's vice president for news. He said Weiss told him he made a bigoted statement and crossed a line.
"I said, 'You mean I don't even get the chance to come in and we do this eyeball-to-eyeball, person-to-person, have a conversation? I've been there more than 10 years," Williams said. He said Weiss responded that "there's nothing you can say that would change my mind."
But Williams has won considerable support from media figures and lawmakers. The hosts of ABC's "The View," whose raucous interview with O'Reilly last week sparked a weeklong back-and-forth about making a distinction between Muslims and Islamic extremists, said NPR was wrong to let Williams go.
"I don't think he should have been fired, because, in fact ... lots of people have this idea," said host Whoopi Goldberg.
Host Barbara Walters said Williams perhaps should have been chastised, not fired because he was on the show to give his perspective.
"I think they were very wrong," she said of NPR.
Republican Rep. Peter King went further, calling on Congress to nix any federal money NPR gets "because of its indefensible bias."
"NPR has disgraced itself by caving into CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations) and by firing Juan Williams for exercising his right of free speech," he said. "This is political correctness carried to its extreme form."
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who hosts a show on Fox News, called on Congress to stop cutting checks to NPR and said he will no longer accept interview requests from NPR "as long as they are going to practice a form of censorship."
"NPR has discredited itself as a forum for free speech and a protection of the First Amendment rights of all and has solidified itself as the purveyor of politically correct pabulum and protector of views that lean left," he said.
Free Press, a nonprofit advocating media reform, denounced the calls to defund NPR.
"It is time to stop playing politics with our nation's public media system," Free Press President Josh Silve said in a written statement.
"Calling for Congress to defund NPR is nothing more than political opportunism by public figures who have built a career on such shenanigans," he said. "Regardless of what you think about Juan Williams' dismissal, calling for the defunding of NPR is like asking for the death penalty in small claims court."
In June, Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., introduced legislation to end taxpayer funding of PBS and NPR -- a bill that he says would save taxpayers about $450 million each year. But the bill has been largely ignored and gone nowhere.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the parent company of PBS and NPR, received $420 million in taxpayer funds in 2010 and has requested $608 million for the next funding cycle that begins in 2013.
NPR says government funding makes up less than 2 percent of it budget, with the rest coming from station fees, sponsorships and grants. This week, the radio network received $1.8 million from billionaire investor George Soros to hire journalists to cover legislatures in all 50 states.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations had urged NPR to take swift action against Williams. The group said such commentary from a journalist about racial, ethnic or religious minority groups should not be tolerated.
"NPR should address the fact that one of its news analysts seems to believe that all airline passengers who are perceived to be Muslim can legitimately be viewed a security threats," said CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad.
CAIR national spokesman Ibrahim Hooper told Fox News that the group is "pleased that the network addressed Muslim concerns."
"It was really up to them what to do in response," he said. "I think everyone has recognized now that perhaps it wasn't a good fit between the network and Mr. Williams."
Hooper said he did not think Williams, an African American who has written extensively on civil rights in the United States, is a bigot. But Hooper said, "Everybody's accountable for their words and their actions, and when he seemed to legitimize singling out people who are perceived to be Muslim based on their attire on airlines, I think that crosses the line."
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/21/npr-seeks-defuse-uproar-williams-firing-critics-congress-defund-network/
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N.P.R. is member supported and will be just fine. The repubes and their supporters, as well as FIXED News and the Ditto Heads, will "piss and moan" and try to make a fuss out of this for a few days. Then it will all go away.
NPR is the best of its genre in the business...bar none.
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N.P.R. is member supported and will be just fine. The repubes and their supporters, as well as FIXED News and the Ditto Heads, will "piss and moan" and try to make a fuss out of this for a few days. Then it will all go away.
NPR is the best of its genre in the business...bar none.
Actually NPR is both privately and publicly funded. It receives a substantial amount of federal money each year. The receive grants each year from the federal government, as well as funding on the local level from each state. Without the federal and state money, NPR would not exist nearly at the capacity it does now. One vote from congress could seriously threaten NPR's livelihood, which personally I'd be in favor of even before this event transpired.
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The far left are nothing but stalinists.
Juan Williams said what 99% of thinking people do, especially after the Times Square Bomber, X Mas Day bomber, etc etc.
As for Benny - what a joke - I'm sure his ghetto ass thinks he is "sophisticated & cultured" listening to NPR when everyone knows he is just your average run of the mill pants on the ground hood rat.
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Oh, Archie!
Still identifying yourself as an old, stupid, uneducated housewife. Good job tool.
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Now I'm convinced that Benny is retarded. Best in the business? Have you ever listened to NPR? The best part of the NPR broadcast is the incessant static. It's the dryest, most boring brand of news/talk radio on the dial by a mile. The fact that it's a socialist/ Marxist outfit doesn't bother me. The programming is robotic and unbelievably boring. I put it on sometimes when i have trouble sleeping. It works better than Tylenol PM.
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N.P.R. is member supported and will be just fine. The repubes and their supporters, as well as FIXED News and the Ditto Heads, will "piss and moan" and try to make a fuss out of this for a few days. Then it will all go away.
NPR is the best of its genre in the business...bar none.
Why does Juan saying he's afraid to fly with Arabs reflect poorly on NPR? It's a totally understood fear shared by 99% of the population and he can't talk about it?
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Why does Juan saying he's afraid to fly with Arabs reflect poorly on NPR? It's a totally understood fear shared by 99% of the population and he can't talk about it?
Unless you tow the far left agenda 100% of the time - they will toss you under the bus for anything.
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JUAN WILLIAMS: I Was Fired for Telling the Truth
By Juan Williams
Published October 21, 2010
| FoxNews.com
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NPR fired me for telling the truth. The truth is that I worry when I am getting on an airplane and see people dressed in garb that identifies them first and foremost as Muslims.
This is not a bigoted statement. It is a statement of my feelings, my fears after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 by radical Muslims. In a debate with Bill O’Reilly I revealed my fears to set up the case for not making rash judgments about people of any faith. I pointed out that the Atlanta Olympic bomber -- as well as Timothy McVeigh and the people who protest against gay rights at military funerals -- are Christians but we journalists don’t identify them by their religion.
And I made it clear that all Americans have to be careful not to let fears lead to the violation of anyone’s constitutional rights, be it to build a mosque, carry the Koran or drive a New York cab without the fear of having your throat slashed. Bill and I argued after I said he has to take care in the way he talks about the 9/11 attacks so as not to provoke bigotry.
This was an honest, sensitive debate hosted by O’Reilly. At the start of the debate Bill invited me, challenged me to tell him where he was wrong for stating the fact that “Muslims killed us there,” in the 9/11 attacks. He made that initial statement on the ABC program, "The View," which caused some of the co-hosts to walk off the set. They did not return until O’Reilly apologized for not being clear that he did not mean the country was attacked by all Muslims but by extremist radical Muslims.
I took Bill’s challenge and began by saying that political correctness can cause people to become so paralyzed that they don’t deal with reality. And the fact is that it was a group of Muslims who attacked the U.S. I added that radicalism has continued to pose a threat to the United States and much of the world. That threat was expressed in court last week by the unsuccessful Times Square bomber who bragged that he was just one of the first engaged in a “Muslim War” against the United States. -- There is no doubt that there's a real war and people are trying to kill us.
Fox Programming Pulled From Cablevision As Contract Ends Dollar Surge Crushes Stocks; Dow Drops 165 Was NPR Right to Fire Juan Williams? NPR Under Fire After Canning Juan Williams RAW DATA: NPR Internal Memo on Juan Williams Mary Katharine Ham, a conservative writer, joined the debate to say that it is important to make the distinction between moderate and extreme Islam for conservatives who support the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on the premise that the U.S. can build up moderate elements in those countries and push out the extremists. I later added that we don’t want anyone attacked on American streets because “they heard rhetoric from Bill O’Reilly and they act crazy.” Bill agreed and said the man who slashed the cabby was a “nut” and so was the Florida pastor who wanted to burn the Koran.
My point in recounting this debate is to show this was in the best American tradition of a fair, full-throated and honest discourse about the issues of the day. -- There was no bigotry, no crude provocation, no support for anti-Muslim sentiments of any kind.
Two days later, Ellen Weiss, my boss at NPR called to say I had crossed the line, essentially accusing me of bigotry. She took the admission of my visceral fear of people dressed in Muslim garb at the airport as evidence that I am a bigot. She said there are people who wear Muslim garb to work at NPR and they are offended by my comments. She never suggested that I had discriminated against anyone. Instead she continued to ask me what did I mean and I told her I said what I meant. Then she said she did not sense remorse from me. I said I made an honest statement. She informed me that I had violated NPR’s values for editorial commentary and she was terminating my contract as a news analyst.
I pointed out that I had not made my comments on NPR. She asked if I would have said the same thing on NPR. I said yes, because in keeping with my values I will tell people the truth about feelings and opinions.
I asked why she would fire me without speaking to me face to face and she said there was nothing I could say to change her mind, the decision had been confirmed above her, and there was no point to meeting in person. To say the least this is a chilling assault on free speech. The critical importance of honest journalism and a free flowing, respectful national conversation needs to be had in our country. But it is being buried as collateral damage in a war whose battles include political correctness and ideological orthodoxy.
I say an ideological battle because my comments on "The O’Reilly Factor" are being distorted by the self-righteous ideological, left-wing leadership at NPR. They are taking bits and pieces of what I said to go after me for daring to have a conversation with leading conservative thinkers. They loathe the fact that I appear on Fox News. They don’t notice that I am challenging Bill O’Reilly and trading ideas with Sean Hannity. In their hubris they think by talking with O’Reilly or Hannity I am lending them legitimacy. Believe me, Bill O’Reilly (and Sean, too) is a major force in American culture and politics whether or not I appear on his show.
Years ago NPR tried to stop me from going on "The Factor." When I refused they insisted that I not identify myself as an NPR journalist. I asked them if they thought people did not know where I appeared on the air as a daily talk show host, national correspondent and news analyst. They refused to budge.
This self-reverential attitude was on display several years ago when NPR asked me to help them get an interview with President George W. Bush. I have longstanding relationships with some of the key players in his White House due to my years as a political writer at The Washington Post. When I got the interview some in management expressed anger that in the course of the interview I said to the president that Americans pray for him but don’t understand some of his actions. They said it was wrong to say Americans pray for him.
Later on the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock crisis President Bush offered to do an NPR interview with me about race relations in America. NPR management refused to take the interview on the grounds that the White House offered it to me and not their other correspondents and hosts. One NPR executive implied I was in the administration’s pocket, which is a joke, and there was no other reason to offer me the interview. Gee, I guess NPR news executives never read my bestselling history of the civil rights movement “Eyes on the Prize – America’s Civil Rights Years,” or my highly acclaimed biography “Thurgood Marshall –American Revolutionary.” I guess they never noticed that "ENOUGH," my last book on the state of black leadership in America, found a place on the New York Times bestseller list.
This all led to NPR demanding that I either agree to let them control my appearances on Fox News and my writings or sign a new contract that removed me from their staff but allowed me to continue working as a news analyst with an office at NPR. The idea was that they would be insulated against anything I said or wrote outside of NPR because they could say that I was not a staff member. What happened is that they immediately began to cut my salary and diminish my on-air role. This week when I pointed out that they had forced me to sign a contract that gave them distance from my commentary outside of NPR I was cut off, ignored and fired.
And now they have used an honest statement of feeling as the basis for a charge of bigotry to create a basis for firing me. Well, now that I no longer work for NPR let me give you my opinion. This is an outrageous violation of journalistic standards and ethics by management that has no use for a diversity of opinion, ideas or a diversity of staff (I was the only black male on the air). This is evidence of one-party rule and one sided thinking at NPR that leads to enforced ideology, speech and writing. It leads to people, especially journalists, being sent to the gulag for raising the wrong questions and displaying independence of thought.
Daniel Schorr, my fellow NPR commentator who died earlier this year, used to talk about the initial shock of finding himself on President Nixon’s enemies list. I can only imagine Dan’s revulsion to realize that today NPR treats a journalist who has worked for them for ten years with less regard, less respect for the value of independence of thought and embrace of real debate across political lines, than Nixon ever displayed.
Juan Williams is now a full-time Fox News contributor. To send a message to Juan click on "Leave a Comment."
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Amen.
The guy is a card carrying democrat. He is not even remotely close to being racist. He supports Obama. He supports most democratic politicians. And oh yeah, he's black. The fact that he goes on O'Reilly's show and actually debates the issues with him should elevate him in the eyes of the left for venturing into "enemy territory". Instead they throw him under the bus because they are spineless pussy's who are under the thumb of terrorist groups like the CAIR and in the pocket of evil multibillionares like George Soros.
Hopefully Juan will consider leaving the side of the aisle that has shunned him for good, and take some more intelligent, prominent minorities with him.
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I asked why she would fire me without speaking to me face to face and she said there was nothing I could say to change her mind, the decision had been confirmed above her, and there was no point to meeting in person. To say the least this is a chilling assault on free speech. The critical importance of honest journalism and a free flowing, respectful national conversation needs to be had in our country. But it is being buried as collateral damage in a war whose battles include political correctness and ideological orthodoxy.
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Wake up Juan! Its not that way on the left.
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Amen.
The guy is a card carrying democrat. He is not even remotely close to being racist. He supports Obama. He supports most democratic politicians. And oh yeah, he's black. The fact that he goes on O'Reilly's show and actually debates the issues with him should elevate him in the eyes of the left for venturing into "enemy territory". Instead they throw him under the bus because they are spineless pussy's who are under the thumb of terrorist groups like the CAIR and in the pocket of evil multibillionares like George Soros.
Hopefully Juan will consider leaving the side of the aisle that has shunned him for good, and take some more intelligent, prominent minorities with him.
Sadly, the terrorist-front group CAIR has this country wrapped around its finger.
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Obama did it
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Actually NPR is both privately and publicly funded. It receives a substantial amount of federal money each year. The receive grants each year from the federal government, as well as funding on the local level from each state. Without the federal and state money, NPR would not exist nearly at the capacity it does now. One vote from congress could seriously threaten NPR's livelihood, which personally I'd be in favor of even before this event transpired.
2% of NPR's funding is from the federal gov't. The reset comes from public and private donors. Local affiliates receive additional funding.
NPR is the BEST of talk radio and isn't going anywhere. Fact based news and analysis for intelligent people who don't to be told what to think.
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Benny = "Pants on the Ground"
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2% of NPR's funding is from the federal gov't. The reset comes from public and private donors. Local affiliates receive additional funding.
NPR is the BEST of talk radio and isn't going anywhere. Fact based news and analysis for intelligent people who don't to be told what to think.
About 50% comes from private funding. The remaining 50% comes from Federal grants and State subsidies. Federal grants make up around 15%, the rest is State subsidized.
This isn't "Crazy Right Wing" stats, this is a pretty easy thing to look up...NPR doesn't hide where its funding comes from.
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About 50% comes from private funding. The remaining 50% comes from Federal grants and State subsidies. Federal grants make up around 15%, the rest is State subsidized.
This isn't "Crazy Right Wing" stats, this is a pretty easy thing to look up...NPR doesn't hide where its funding comes from.
incorrect, sorry
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Michael Barone: NPR’s intolerant firing of Juan Williams
Washington Examiner ^ | 10/21/10 | Michael Barone
By now you have heard the astonishing and dismaying news that NPR has fired Juan Williams for making the following comment on the O’Reilly program on Fox News Channel.
“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
As Clive Crook has noted, back in 1993 Jesse Jackson said
“There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”
Of course neither statement is bigoted. And it is apparent from Juan Williams’s further statements on O’Reilly that his feeling of worry or nervousness is, as in Jackson’s case, painful to him. Many if not all readers feel the same way. We’re all aware that most identifiable Muslims on planes, like most young black men on city streets, are peaceful and unmenacing. But we also know who hurled those planes into buildings on September 11.
I’ve known Juan Williams for 28 years. In 1982, when I joined the Washington Post’s editorial page staff, I took over what had been Juan’s office and his telephone number, as he was moving from the editorial side of the paper back to the news side. In the preceding weeks, Juan had been working on stories about prostitution in Washington, and during the first several weeks I received some pretty weird telephone calls—something we’ve laughed about ever since. Over the years I’ve...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...
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incorrect, sorry
"The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the parent company of PBS and NPR, received $420 million in taxpayer funds in 2010"
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/21/npr-seeks-defuse-uproar-williams-firing-critics-congress-defund-network/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2FKTvS+%28FOXNews.com%29
NPR states only 2% of their money comes from federal grants, OK fine, maybe I was off on the percentage of federal money, but you still have to include money given to NPR from the states in the form of grants...pretty much the same thing, meaning, money is taken from you and given to NPR. In another statement today NPR said it receives 10% of it's funding in Federal grants...so that's a little fishy.
Now this is funny, in the past 24hrs the Wiki page on NPR funding has been completely rewritten. As of this time yesterday the first sentence stated NPR receives approximately 40% of it's funding from private donations, 16% from federal grants and the rest from the individual states. Flash forward to today, and that first sentence is gone and is replaced with a sentence that says NPR receives no federal funding.
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We should not be paiying any of this. Same with the NEA.
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They shouldn't get any taxpayer dollars.
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Video: Dem Congressman: Juan Williams Is “Un-American”
Eyeblast TV / The Blast ( Media Research Center) ^ | 10/25/2010
Posted on Monday, October 25, 2010 12:07:13 PM by blog.Eyeblast.tv
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) appeared on the Ed Schultz show and said Juan Williams is ‘Un-American’ and people like him contribute to ‘profiling and harassing Americans’ for his comments last week on Muslim airline passengers. Schultz agreed and said the Congressman’s comments were ‘right on the mark’.
Williams responded to his firing by saying NPR was looking for a reason to get rid of him, and jumped all over the comments to do so.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.eyeblast.tv ...
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Video: Dem Congressman: Juan Williams Is “Un-American”
Eyeblast TV / The Blast ( Media Research Center) ^ | 10/25/2010
Posted on Monday, October 25, 2010 12:07:13 PM by blog.Eyeblast.tv
Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) appeared on the Ed Schultz show and said Juan Williams is ‘Un-American’ and people like him contribute to ‘profiling and harassing Americans’ for his comments last week on Muslim airline passengers. Schultz agreed and said the Congressman’s comments were ‘right on the mark’.
Williams responded to his firing by saying NPR was looking for a reason to get rid of him, and jumped all over the comments to do so.
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.eyeblast.tv ...
No wonder nobody watches his show.
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Good.
Top NPR official stepping down
Ellen Weiss agrees to step down as senior vice president for news after 28 years with the radio network, which just finished an investigation into last year's firing of news analyst Juan Williams.
By James Rainey, Los Angeles Times
January 7, 2011
The top news official at National Public Radio announced Thursday that she would leave her post, as the news outlet concluded an investigation into last year's firing of news analyst Juan Williams.
Ellen Weiss agreed to step down as senior vice president for news after 28 years with the radio network. Weiss had fired Williams for his comments on Fox News about fearing some Muslims who board airliners with him.
The Williams' termination set off a furor and an admission by NPR Chief Executive Vivian Schiller that Williams had been let go too quickly, without a face-to-face meeting. The NPR board began a review and announced the results Thursday.
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Schiller has been admonished for her part in the controversy and will not receive a bonus for 2010, according to a statement from the NPR board that was e-mailed to employees Thursday afternoon. She will remain in her post, though, and received a vote of confidence from the NPR board of directors, according to the statement.
FOR THE RECORD: The article on Ellen Weiss' departure as senior vice president for news at NPR incorrectly quoted Fox News host Bill O'Reilly. In discussing a controversy over a proposal to build a Muslim cultural center in downtown Manhattan O'Reilly said, "Muslims killed us on 9/11." The Times inadvertently rendered the quote, from the ABC program "The View," as " Muslims really killed us on 9/11."
"The Board has expressed confidence in Vivian Schiller's leadership going forward. She accepted responsibility as CEO and cooperated fully with the review process," the statement read. "The Board, however, expressed concern over her role in the termination process and has voted that she will not receive a 2010 bonus."
The statement also said that "concerns regarding the speed and handling of the termination process" led the board to recommend other actions "with regard to management involved in Williams' contract termination." It did not explicitly say whether those actions concerned Weiss but that seemed evident when she tendered her resignation.
Weiss called her decision to step down Thursday as the top news executive at National Public Radio "extremely hard" but declined to either criticize NPR or back away from her firing of Williams. Weiss, 51, would have hit her 29th anniversary at NPR next month, stressed that she did not make the decision to fire Williams alone, referring to Schiller's approval of the firing.
"What I would say is that the decision to terminate the Juan Williams contract by NPR, of which I was a participant, was based on the highest journalistic standards," Weiss said Thursday.
The departure of Weiss and the board's announcement that it would revamp its ethics rules are bound to resurrect the controversy that exploded around cable television and the blogosphere late in October.
Conservatives can be expected to renew their calls to cut government funding for public radio — an action that could gain traction with a new Republican majority in the House of Representatives. Liberals likely will be infuriated at blowback for the ouster of Williams, who they believed went easy on their conservative opponents.
The controversy began with an appearance Williams made in late October on the Fox News program "The O'Reilly Factor." Conservative host Bill O'Reilly had recently appeared on the ABC program "The View," and said that "the Muslims really killed us on 9/11," causing two of the co-hosts to walk off in protest of a statement they considered bigoted.
O'Reilly asked Williams, one of his regular guests, to comment on his thoughts on Muslims. Williams said "political correctness" shouldn't stop Americans from expressing their real fears about terrorism. "When I get on a plane, I got to tell you," Williams added, "if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."
Two days later, Weiss called Williams and fired him for violating a provision in the NPR ethics guidelines against its news staff expressing personal opinions. NPR journalists, the code says, "should not participate in shows…that encourage punditry and speculation rather than fact-based analysis."
Though Williams had been warned about opinion-making before, the radio network seemed to apply the rule unequally, letting some of its other personalities offer opinions on Fox and other outlets. The one-time Washington Post journalist reacted furiously, saying he had been censored.
He soon had a full-time job at Fox, where he reportedly will receive $2 million over three years. Fox News chief Roger Ailes used the incident to trumpet the conservative network as a haven for diversity of opinion.
Schiller agreed to Williams' termination and defended it, given the commentator's opinion making. But she soon increased critics' outrage by suggesting Williams should direct his complaints to his "psychiatrist or his publicist."
Schiller then apologized, conceded the firing had been too hasty. A couple of weeks later NPR board Chairman Dave Edwards announced the outside review by Weil, Gotshal & Manges, a multi-national law firm with offices in Washington, where NPR is based.
The review assessed not only Schiller, but Weiss. It reviewed e-mails from the principals, including those Williams exchanged with O'Reilly, preparing for their joint discussion about Muslims on the Fox program. NPR does not plan to release Weil's report. The board's statement expressed "concerns regarding the speed and handling of the termination process" and said that as a result it had "recommended that certain actions be taken with regard to management involved in Williams' contract termination."
The statement did not explicitly name Weiss but one person familiar with the review said Weiss was under pressure to leave as a result of the investigation.
In the memo from the board to employees Thursday, NPR said it tried, but failed, to get Williams to participate in the review.
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-npr-20110107,0,7743574.story
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:)
JUAN WILLIAMS: It's Time to Defund NPR
By Juan Williams
Published March 14, 2011
FoxNews.com
It just keeps happening. NPR's leadership keeps tripping over its microphone wires and then asking everybody else to plug them back in.
I know everybody thinks I must be in a vindictive mood, celebrating the sudden departure of NPR CEO Vivian Schiller after her hand-picked personal fundraiser was caught on tape disparaging Tea Party activists, Jews and taking more shots at me. I'm human and do have some thoughts but it's okay to keep them to myself.
I will not slander her in the way that she impugned my intellect and my integrity with condescending comments after my firing. She said my comments on Fox News violated journalistic ethics and should have been kept between "him and his psychiatrist or his publicist." Schiller's missteps have been very public and all too visible to the world, allowing everyone to draw their own conclusions about her.
I'm not being vindictive when I say that NPR leadership had become ingrown and arrogant to the point that they lost sight of journalism as the essential product of NPR. People like Schiller and Ellen Weiss, the head of news for NPR, who made it her life's work to fire me, came to think of themselves as smarter than anyone else. They felt no need to answer to any critic. No other point of view had any importance to them. They came to personify anti-intellectual resentment and arrogance in journalism. Any approach at variance with their own was considered traitorous and a basis for exiling them to the Gulag or in my case, firing me.
The recent videotape showing NPR chief fundraiser Ron Schiller (no relation to Vivian Schiller) is just an open microphone on what I've been hearing from NPR top executives and editors for years. They are willing to do anything in service to any liberal with money and then they will turn around and in self-righteous indignation claim that they have cleaner hands than anybody in the news business who accepts advertising or expresses a point of view.
Ron Schiller's performance on videotape -- which included lecturing two young men pretending to be Muslims on how to select wine -- is a "South Park" worthy caricature of the American liberal as an effete, Volvo-driving, wine-sipping, NPR-listening dunderhead.
The work of NPR's many outstanding journalists is barely an afterthought to leadership with this mindset and obsessed with funding. NPR has many, very good journalists. But they are caught in a game where they are trying to please a leadership that doesn't want to hear stories that contradict the official point of view. I'm not just talking about conservatives but also the far-left, the poor, anybody who didn't fit into leadership's design of NPR as the official voice of comfortable, liberal-leaning upper-income America.
This just confirms my belief that it is time for our government to get out of the business of funding NPR. NPR's management had been wanting to not only maintain current funding but expand the network to create a much larger BCC-style institution in the United States. The idea to me of government-funded media doesn't fit the United States. No matter the good intentions about protecting journalists from the excesses of the marketplace such as sensationalism and the dominance of entertainment news, journalists should not be doing news to please any party or any elected official -- out of fear of losing funding. And the tremendous variety of sources for news -- in print, broadcast, on the radio and on the Internet, does not suggest that there's any reason for the U.S. government to make a priority of supporting NPR while cutting funding for school breakfast programs or college scholarships.
The New York Times, the Washington Post, Fox News may have budget struggles but they do fine journalism while accepting advertising. Over the last several years, NPR's leadership had become so obsessed with the money issue, as evidenced by Ron Schiller's behavior, that it had started to corrupt the news gathering process because non-profit fundraising has devolved into an underworld cesspool.
The result is that NPR's leadership under the likes of Weiss and the two Schillers has been diminishing their own brand. They created an anti-intellectual environment that took delight and pride in censoring journalists like me for honestly admitting that people dressed in Muslim garb make me nervous at airports. They had lost slight of promoting debates and providing information that is essential for people who want to be well-informed as citizens of a thriving democracy.
I am still insulted when I hear Ron Schiller, no doubt reflecting his boss Vivian Schiller, still making the case that my firing as a good thing, it was just handled badly. This was not a process problem. I said nothing, I violated no journalistic standard that should have resulted in me being fired. It's only in the very small world and small thinking of NPR's leadership that appearing on Fox News Channel and speaking about a feeling in the context of a larger debate somehow makes for a bad journalist who needs to be muzzled.
My hope is that the great journalists who are at NPR will carry on and that the NPR audience will support them, especially at the level of local member stations where in many places NPR is a community treasure. Those stations often provide coverage that is hard to find as local newspaper and TV coverage declines due to economic pressures.
So, I'm still an NPR fan, but I'm no fan of the self-serving, self-righteous thinking that is at the top level of NPR in Washington and that has corrupted a once great brand.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/03/14/juan-williams-latest-npr-scandal-disgrace-time-defund-npr/?test=faces
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;D