Juan Williams gets fired from NPR for highlighting the problem with political correctness by being politically incorrect. http://www.mediaite.com/online/npr-...remarks-made-about-muslims-on-oreilly-factor/ I am a long-time NPR supporter, but I'm not contributing the next time they come calling. Shameful.
Re: Ridiculous Odd. If the quoted statement is all he said/ got fired for, I don't get it. That doesn't even seem to me to be politically incorrect. If he's afraid of Muslims, he's afraid of Muslims. That's just a statement about himself. Too bad for him, but (unless his job involved interviewing lots of Muslims) I don't see how it affects his job. barfo
Re: Ridiculous You said it better than I did. Juan Williams is as fair-minded as they come. He said a lot of things in the Washington Post that only a black person could say. I can't believe with his track record they didn't cut him any slack. Of course, it could be that they didn't like his freelancing for an organization like FOX and were just looking for an opportunity to can him.
Re: Ridiculous George Soros just gave $1.8 million to NPR. Plus, this NPR contributor apparently speaks the truth regarding Jesse Helms! “If there is retributive justice, he’ll get AIDS from a transfusion, or one of his grandchildren will get it" http://www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20031020.asp
Re: Ridiculous Cut the federal budget by ending the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or at least stop using public money to fund it. I really don't get this firing. Yeah, what he said was politically incorrect out of context. In context, it was honest and has more to do with the hype about muslim terrorists than it does about him having some issue with muslims.
Re: Ridiculous And here's the denouement: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130712737&ps=cprs That's a quote from NPR's own statement about the firing from their own WWW site. Looks like they were waiting for an excuse to get rid of him. Anyone who's listened to NPR and says they don't take clear-cut positions about public policy are liars. Nothing wrong with taking the positions, but at least be honest about it.
Re: Ridiculous Thanks for the quote, Denny. Gee, do you think Mara Liasson is hearing footsteps? As I said before, I've been a financial supporter of NPR since I was a freshman in college. This decision and the reasoning behind it means they won't get another penny from me. I changed my radio station last night. In fact, this morning for the first time since I can remember since living in the US, I didn't wake up to Morning Edition.
Re: Ridiculous I think so. And congratulations to the folks at NPR who condemn society's sellouts for selling out themselves.
Re: Ridiculous Here is an example of NPR's sensitivity: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120344047
Re: Ridiculous So the far-right/privately-funded cable channel FauxNews allows an NPR liberal like Juan Williams on their channel to express his opinions, yet taxpayer-funded NPR can't stand having a FoxNews liberal on their public airwaves, and was looking for an excuse to can him? And FauxNews is the narrow-minded channel? Up is down.
Juan Williams' (NPR) Firing Causing Conservative Backlash Interesting. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/21/npr-juan-williams-firing-_n_771632.html
Re: Juan Williams' (NPR) Firing Causing Conservative Backlash Like barfo said, I don't get it. I like Williams and thought he played the role of moderate very well.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2010/10/21/huckabee-calls-on-congress-to-cut-npr-funding/ I wonder if it isn't time to completely sever the umbilical cord from the government and NPR.
They only get about 2% of their funding from the federal government, so they might as well cut that purse string. NPR is a fantastic service and would be just fine without the backing. My only concern is that there'd be a risk of it becoming a much more left wing propaganda machine (like all of AM talk radio is for the right). But even that is doubtful. They raise a lot of money with moderate and conservative Americans. I don't think anything O'Reilly or anybody else on the right says really matters. It's patently obvious what they'd say. What does matter is that a lot of people in the middle and on the left are really puzzled by the decision. I wouldn't consider cutting off my annual donation over this move. I mean, do I really want to give up great programs like Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and Science Friday over one bad decision? maxie, I strongly suggest you reconsider. Frankly, a boycott is probably meaningless to them. I'm planning on shaving off 10% of my donation and explicitly explaining to the person I call into why I am doing so. If they hear it enough at the bottom of the organization, it might register at the top.
Isn't NPR (and its associated stations) tax-exempt because of that funding? Also, while "NPR" may receive a fraction of its budget from federal funding, their local affiliate stations receive much, much more. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20020383-503544.html Indirectly or directly, NPR is benefitting greatly from federal tax dollars. What good is a radio network if it has no stations to air its programming, and if the dues those stations pay NPR come from federal tax dollars? I say pull the $93 million for local stations and let NPR make up the rest in donations or advertising, like other partisan networks do.
I became interested in how many NPR affiliates there are. Looks like the number is ~700. http://www.cpb.org/aboutpb/faq/stations.html $93,000,000/700 stations = ~$132,850/station Considering that most of these affiliates merely run the national NPR programming, which means they typically don't pay for their own talent, that's a fair chunk of money for basically plugging in a cord and paying some bills.
