Should NPR Have Fired Williams Over Muslim Comment?
SodaHead News
2010/10/21 18:45:35
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First NPR forbade some of its reporters and staffers from attending the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert rallies in Washington, now the lefty radio network is booting one of its long-time contributors for incendiary comments he made about Muslims.
NPR, long a bastion of political correctness, jettisoned news analyst and Fox News contributor Juan Williams on Wednesday, a day after his comments on "The O’Reilly Factor” raised some hackles and charges of racism.
During an appearance on the show, host Bill O’Reilly asked Williams about his thoughts on the scene a few days earlier, when Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg stormed off the set of “The View” after guest O’Reilly said “Muslims killed us on 9/11.”
Williams responded, "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."
Even though Williams went on to say that he was not talking about all Muslims, that the country is not at war with Islam and that blaming all Muslims for the actions of a few is like fingering all Christians for the work of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, NPR considered the comment a firing offense.
With the seemingly bigoted genie out of the bottle, NPR announced on Wednesday that, after decades of analysis for the network, Williams had been canned over comments a statement said were “inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”
Williams appeared on a Fox News morning show on Thursday and explained that when he got a call from NPR’s Senior VP of News asking for clarification on his comments, he said “I said what I meant to say … which is that it is an honest experience that when I’m in an airport and I see people in Muslim garb who identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I do a double take. I have a moment of anxiety or fear given what happened on 9/11.”
Even after explaining to VP Ellen Weiss that he’d gone on the “Factor” to say that America had an obligation to protect the constitutional rights of everyone in the country,” he was told the decision to fire him had already been made. According to The Associated Press, NPR President Vivian Schiller said Williams had repeatedly violated NPR’s guidelines barring analysts from making personal or controversial comments over the years and that he’d been warned about such statements before.
Do you think Williams deserved to be fired from NPR for his comments?
NPR, long a bastion of political correctness, jettisoned news analyst and Fox News contributor Juan Williams on Wednesday, a day after his comments on "The O’Reilly Factor” raised some hackles and charges of racism.
During an appearance on the show, host Bill O’Reilly asked Williams about his thoughts on the scene a few days earlier, when Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg stormed off the set of “The View” after guest O’Reilly said “Muslims killed us on 9/11.”
Williams responded, "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."
Even though Williams went on to say that he was not talking about all Muslims, that the country is not at war with Islam and that blaming all Muslims for the actions of a few is like fingering all Christians for the work of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, NPR considered the comment a firing offense.
With the seemingly bigoted genie out of the bottle, NPR announced on Wednesday that, after decades of analysis for the network, Williams had been canned over comments a statement said were “inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”
Williams appeared on a Fox News morning show on Thursday and explained that when he got a call from NPR’s Senior VP of News asking for clarification on his comments, he said “I said what I meant to say … which is that it is an honest experience that when I’m in an airport and I see people in Muslim garb who identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I do a double take. I have a moment of anxiety or fear given what happened on 9/11.”
Even after explaining to VP Ellen Weiss that he’d gone on the “Factor” to say that America had an obligation to protect the constitutional rights of everyone in the country,” he was told the decision to fire him had already been made. According to The Associated Press, NPR President Vivian Schiller said Williams had repeatedly violated NPR’s guidelines barring analysts from making personal or controversial comments over the years and that he’d been warned about such statements before.
Do you think Williams deserved to be fired from NPR for his comments?
Top Opinion
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No
+12He should have not been fired for his opinion. I do not like to board a plan with Muslims for reasons quite obvious. Don't call me a bigot because I am anti-terrorist and don't care for members of the Islam faith that try to kill me.
The NPR executive that fired Juan Williams is one of the bg problems that we have in America today. There is no such thing as political correctness when it comes to killing. Most Muslims, not all, want to force their religion on everyone else or they should die.
Taxpayer funding for NPR should be taken away from them. I forbid the U. S. Government from sending my tax dollars to a broadcasting company that censors freedom of speech.
Their license to broadcast should be revoked.
My opinion is that Juan Williams should be restated to his job and the person or persons responsible for firing him in the first place should be fired.
There is no such thing as a misinformed media - only a {controlled media} as well as a {controlled Press} and freedom of religion for non Christians only!!! Americans needs to wake up and stop drinking the fluoridated water and taking antidepressants which are making us nothing more than zombies of the state programmed to receive and snap the hell out of it once and for all!!! The America we once knew is no more! And neither is our constitution point blank!!! Welcome to the back side of Hell known as the NWO.
I do agree as a preacher that - Only LOVE changes things for the better anyway..... Hatred, bitterness and bias have never served us.
But its high we started realizing just who our true enemy is and we do not have to leave our borders to find them!!!
God hold you
Johnny
I bet many a true scholar could make good constitutional arguments for it being completely wrong.
Bush and Obama should be able to answer that one for you Sister!
Don't even think about freedom of speach today! just the thought might get you locked up!
Be blessed
Johnny
I HOPE THEY REMOVE ALL FEDERAL FUNDING FOR NPR.
I HOPE JUAN WILLIAMS SUE'S THE PANTS OFF OF NPR FOR VIOLATING HIS RIGHTS
THIS IS A DARK DAY FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH HERE IN AMERICA....
HE DID NOT GIVE HIS OPINION HE GAVE HIS FEELINGS WHICH ARE THE SAME FEELINGS AS OF 98.9% OF ALL AMERICANS WHO FLY AFTER WHAT CONSPIRED HERE IN AMERICA ON 9-1-1........
FIRED HIM FOR WHAT ????????
Anytime hypocrisy can be exposed publicly it is good for all of us.
And Vivian Schiller definitely did not have the right to suggest that Juan Williams should take up his feelings, which are perfectly reasonable, with his psychiatrist or his publicist. So now anyone who disagrees with the NPR party line is either a paranoiac or a shock jock. I've watched Juan Williams for years since he began occasionally giving a good-natured needle to the Fox News Channel regulars. And neither label fits him. To say otherwise, especially the crack about being a paranoiac, is slander.
You cannot diagnose paranoia, or paranoid neurosis, or paranoid ideation, in any subject who faces a real threat. Therefore, by saying that, Schiller is sticking her head in the sand and denying the threat. And if anyone doubted the threat, they had onlly to listen to Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR. This is the same Ibrahim Hooper who boasted to his choir that the green crescent-moon-and-star flag would fly over the White House in 2010. (No, he hasn't gotten that. We have the Big Rainbow O flag flying over the White House, not the crescent-moon-and-star. That probably has Hooper gnashing his teeth more than anything.)
I'm curious though how Mr. Williams can tell just by one's wardrobe that they hold their religion first and foremost.
Personally, I get nervous around people who identify themselves first and foremost as a follower of any religion, because it suggests that they may not respect the laws of this nation as I do since they hold another authority higher. I think we've seen enough of that in our nation's history, and sadly still see it today.
As far as being offended by things, we have a great number of freedoms in the US, but freedom from being offended is not in the constitution. Besides, I'm far more offended by people talking and acting from ignorance. If we're going to start outlawing offensive behavior, I'd start there.
Last year a kid in England challenged an exception that was being made in stores that allowed things like burkhas by insisting he be allowed to wear his hood over his head while in the store. Why? He's a Jedi, which ranked as the 4th largest religion in the UK in a poll (too funny). His challenge should have exposed the ridiculousness of having a religious exception to a security rule, but instead he won and now Jedis can wear their hoods in stores. Pure nonsense. Just as how there shouldn't be exceptions to rules for the religious, you also can't single them out by making rules which affect only one religion.
npr lost a good person and juan williams is better off without them
hope he finds a better job who truly appericate him