Screw Free Speech, NPR Fires Juan Williams for Muslim Remarks
Posted by P.J. Salvatore Oct 20th 2010 at 9:01 pm in First Amendment, Free Speech, Justice/Legal, NPR, Radio, journalism, media bias | Comments (51)
NPR terminated its contract this evening with Juan Williams, who worked with them as a senior political analyst, after Williams appeared on Bill O’Reilly and spoke of a “Muslim dilemma:”
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.
A taxpaying-funded organization fired someone over their free speech? No! Shocker!
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.”
Who could forget NPR’s cute guide to all things teabag? NPR had no problem with this: NPR’s “Learn to Speak Teabag:”
NPR doesn’t have a problem with statements like this on its airwaves:
I stick very rigorously to the evidence. You had the Nazis unloaded coffins at night. We saw coffins being unloaded at night. They talked about enhanced interrogation, meaning torture. Karl Rove talked about enhanced interrogation, meaning torture. They said, you know, we’ve got to invade Czechoslovakia, because it’s a staging ground for terrorists. We said we had to invade Iraq, a country we’re not at war with, because they’re torturing their ethnic minorities, it’s a staging ground for terrorists, and they hate our freedoms. I don’t need to draw an analogy. The analogies are there.
Can we stop pretending that this is serious radio and pull their public funding already?
Sad. Just as we thought they were becoming real.
*UPDATE #1: Interesting study just out from FAIR on PBS:
In a special November issue of studies and analyses of PBS’s major public affairs shows, FAIR’s magazine Extra! shows that “public television” features guestlists strongly dominated by white, male and elite sources, who are far more likely to represent corporations and war makers than environmentalists or peace advocates.s.
Can we stop force-funding television and radio now? If it’s not one of the enumerated powers of Article 1 Section 8, leave it alone.
UPDATE #2: CAIR calls on NPR to address Williams remarks.
UPDATE #3: More NPR “tolerance” courtesy Dan Riehl.
UPDATE #4: NPR producer fantasizes about Rush Limbaugh’s death.
UPDATE #5: NPR’s Nina Totenberg said in 1995, “because if there is retributive justice, he’ll [Jesse Helms] get AIDS from a transfusion. Or one of his grandchildren will get it.”
[Nina Totenberg was NOT fired for hoping Jesse Helms or his grandchild gets AIDS. NPR producer Sarah Spitz was NOT fired for talking about she'd like to laugh maniacally as Rush Limbaugh lay dying of a heart attack. ]
UPDATE #6: From the comments:
Are Juan Williams’ statements worse that Obama’s regarding his grandmother?
“My grandmother… is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn’t know, there’s a reaction in her that doesn’t go away and it comes out in the wrong way.”
UPDATE #7: Curious the timing of NPR’s cash infusion from George Soros and Williams’ firing …
bigjournalism.com
George Soros’ Millions Buying ‘Political Reporters’ for NPR
Don't they already have enough of those?
Posted by Warner Todd Huston Oct 18th 2010 at 12:32 pm in Featured Story, Fox News, Mainstream Media, NPR, Old media, Radio, journalism, media bias | Comments (187)
The left loves to go wild claiming that Rupert Murdoch, a famous conservative, owns a few news outlets. The left is also aghast that well known righty Roger Ailes guides Fox News. Ailes’s ideology makes of his network a compromised product, they claim. It’s all a travesty of “news,” and “proof” that those agencies are contaminated by right-wing ideology say lefty detractors. So, with the news that George Soros is buying one hundred political “reporters” for National Public Radio (NPR), one waits with bated breath for the left to decry the fact that a famous anti-American leftist is buying and influencing the “news.”
One will likely wait in vain, too.
In fact, The New York Times doesn’t even mention the left-wing ideology of the foundation that is supplying $1.8 million to NPR so it can hire political reporters across the country.
The left-wing Open Society Foundations is donating the large sum to NPR for a project being called “Impact of Government.” The project is planning to add at least 100 reporters across the country to cover local state house politics to fill the holes left by the firing of so many local reporters due to the contraction in the field of journalism over the last decade.
One might look at this plan and imagine that it isn’t such a bad idea. If states have lost reporters ready to hold local politicians accountable why is it so bad for $1.8 million to be spent to fill that gap? But in the NYT piece one can see why this donation should raise eyebrows instead of making folks feel at ease that the plan is merely helping fill a reporting gap.
Ms. Schiller said the journalists would not be part of typical statehouse coverage, but instead would work on enterprise journalism that looks at how state government decisions play out over years, and extend beyond a single state’s borders.
What exactly does “enterprise journalism” mean? This sure smacks of agenda journalism as opposed to mere reporting, doesn’t it? And even if that isn’t the intent, the rhetoric here is suspicious.
But what makes this all even more suspicious is the source of the $1.8 million donation. The Open Society Foundations was founded by well-known anti-American George Soros. Yet, nowhere in the news is this made clear to readers.
One might recall the hullabaloo that was raised when it was revealed that News Corp, owner of Fox News, had donated one million dollars to Republicans for this election cycle. It was the end of the world as far as the left was concerned. It was “proof” that Fox could not be trusted.
Yet, here we have George Soros buying reporters for NPR, the same Soros who has an extremely left-wing agenda that he has been pushing on the world for decades. After all, if the assumption that conservatives owning Fox makes its news slanted, shouldn’t the same logic dictate that anything Soros owns reflects his ideology? Shouldn’t we assume that NPR’s new reporters will be left-wing hacks bought and paid for by one of the richest, most active, most extreme left-wing activists in the world?
So what is the difference between a left-wing billionaire buying 100 reporters for NPR and Fox News being owned by conservative owners? Why has the Old Media establishment completely ignored the extremist agenda of the foundation making such a large donation to NPR? Why isn’t NPR to be suspected of being a left-wing mouthpiece now?
The answer to this question can only be that the Old Media establishment is already bought and paid for by the far left and would never raise questions that might reflect badly on a left-wing agenda. Only conservatives need “outing” as far as the Old Media is concerned.
That George Soros owns NPR like this? Well, that’s just a little secret between you and me.
bigjournalism.com
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