Juan Williams fired from NPR

NPR analyst Juan Williams was fired after making comments on the O'Reilly Factor that he would be scared by Muslims on a plane. Furthermore, now Republicans are calling for funding for the corporation to be stripped in response to the incident. Okay, I'll admit it: firing the guy was probably a bit hasty. But stripping funding for it? And the logic doesn't hold up. People shouldn't have to support so-called "liberal" programming they don't like? Fine. I shouldn't have to support wars I don't like either. So what? If NPR is doing a good job of accurately reporting the news, I say keep funding them. If that makes them seem liberal, well, perhaps reality has a liberal bias.

And on a side note, when did Muslims become Acceptable Targets all of a sudden? People are acting like it's liberal to think that people shouldn't judge people based on their appearance. No, that's not liberal, that's not being an asshole. And yet people are acting like being prejudiced against Muslims is a perfectly normal thing. The hell?

It just me how Islam is treated as a race when it's a religion.

^^ NPR is held to a higher standard in such things because it receives taxpayer funding. If it were completely private like say CNN or Fox, this would have flew by without anyone caring.

I'll admit I hold a bit of respect for Juan Williams. He's a liberal, but he's the kind who you would love to debate for hours to days on end because he never resorts to the shenanigans, ad hominems and other insults, thought terminating cliches, old and boring shit like pulling the race card or saying your opinion should be illegal, all things frequently demonstrated by the far left in the last 10 years across a wide variety of politicians and political activist organizations.

NPR firing Williams for more or less being associated with Fox News strikes me as not only stupid, but runs foul with the Constitution. You don't fire people just for their opinions if you receive taxpayer funding. Thus NPR doesn't deserve such funding anymore.

edited 22nd Oct '10 10:39:19 PM by MajorTom

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You don't fire people just for their opinions if you receive taxpayer funding.

Sure you can. NPR is not part of the government; therefore, it is much freer in hiring and firing decisions.

Also! Let's see what Mr. Williams himself has to say about whether or not he's liberal.

Following his firing from NPR, Williams appeared on The O'Reilly Factor and offered his thoughts on his role at FOX playing into NPR's decision: "I don't fit in their box. I'm not predictable, black, liberal.

Huh.

edited 22nd Oct '10 11:18:09 PM by EnglishIvy

NPR is not part of the government; therefore, it is much freer in hiring and firing decisions.

The government can favor one ideology by making people pay taxes to fund public corporations whose employees must adhere to that ideology?

That's kind of an enormous loophole.

{Off-topic deleted —Madrugada}

NPR firing Williams for more or less being associated with Fox News strikes me as not only stupid, but runs foul with the Constitution.

...

The clause about employment regulations for radio commentators?

edited 23rd Oct '10 12:37:57 PM by Madrugada

Forgive my ignorance, but...NPR is funded by taxes?

If you mean they're non-profit and therefore tax exempt-while that is essentially the same as them being tax funded in terms of where money goes, legally it's completely different.

Or were you talking about something else?

Edit: And now I read the article. And I learned something! But now I feel dumb for posting the above. I didn't know they were directly funded by taxes!

This merits more learning.

edited 23rd Oct '10 12:30:58 AM by deathjavu

@Rott: Is this your first time seeing federal money put into private organizations, who are not bound by the same laws as the government?

They're not.

Again with the fucking constitution.

Okay, if this guy's rights are being violated, then where the hell is my high-paying journalism job? Oh, and to bring up something totally unrelated, Doctor Laura's first-amendment rights were apparently also being violated when she decided to quit radio. So, having my own radio timeslot is also a protected right under the constitution, right? It looks to me as if the people's rights to spout ridiculous nonsense on national syndication is being flagrantly violated! I am outraged!

While I do think firing him was over-hasty, NPR is within their rights to hire and fire people as they see fit, so long as they don't run afoul of the same antidiscrimination laws to which every other corporation must adhere. They are being paid by the government to provide a service: namely, informing the public. The government gets to dictate which service they provide by the simple fact that the government is (partially) paying for it. NPR gets to decide how it provides that service within the boundary of the law. Do you know what we call that? Free Market. Remember? The holy grail and whatnot?

Anyway, I should point out that the national, overarching NPR organization (the organization which fired Juan Williams) receives approximately two percent of its annual revenue from the government. Local member stations like my own excellent local WCVE, however, receive much larger portions of their funding from the government. To cut funding for NPR would be massively ineffective at chastising the people who fired Juan Williams, rightly or wrongly, and would in fact devastate many stations which provide a valuable and appreciated public service.

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{Off-topic deleted —Madrugada}

I'm fairly sure it's acceptable to fire someone for racism. A bit hasty? Sure. But his comments were highly offensive, and the sort of thing that those in the media do get fired for when caught saying.

edited 23rd Oct '10 12:39:35 PM by Madrugada

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"And yet people are acting like being prejudiced against Muslims is a perfectly normal thing."

The disturbing reality is that people in this country ARE acting like it's a perfectly normal thing. Normalcy and popular opinion do NOT equal moral rightness. If Williams was somehow seeking to address that issue, then I can concede to his argument. However, his method of articulation was imbalanced and improper. Getting fired? Yeah, that was going too far for NPR, but his comment should not have passed without due criticism, as it has for many other social commentators and analysts.

This controversy was actually discussed on the Diane Rehm Show on Friday. One caller brought up an interesting point in saying this situation underscores the notion that we ought to further distinguish commentators from analysts. Analysts provide facts and inferences based on their professional experience. Commentators provide an opinion through emotional content.

The caller went on to suggest that Williams committed a grave error in crossing the line between those two areas of political discourse, and I'm inclined to agree. I'm tired of the "talking heads" epidemic that swarms through our media. I keep seeing people talking about what they think instead of talking about what they know, and many viewers tend to not tell the difference between facts and "how I feel" about facts. Feel free to disagree, but that's my take on it.

{Offtopic deleted—Madrugada}

edited 23rd Oct '10 12:40:56 PM by Madrugada

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