NPR Fires Juan Williams For Anti-Muslim Bigotry
As Glenn Greenwald has documented in the past, the media has had a double standard on anti-Muslim bigotry. Bill O’Reilly caused Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg to walk off of the View by saying that all terrorists are Muslim. NPR’s Juan Williams has long walked a fine line by being Fox’s supposedly liberal black friend but went a bridge too far for NPR and lost his job:
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.
Note to everyone: If you ever start a sentence “I’m not a bigot but…” it’s probably best not to keep talking. So, how do you feel about this move, especially considering the recent incidents with Helen Thomas and Rick Sanchez?
Tags: Juan Williams, NPR, racism
NPR is the new ACORN:
You beat me to this one, UI. And is important to look at this in light of the Thomas and Sanchez firings. The difference in the outrage and attention here is going to be the wingnut attention, which has apparently started. Both Palin and Huckabee are on Twitter getting their poutrage on and I’m sure neither of them had a word to say about either Thomas or Sanchez.
I also expect that Williams was not fired because of these statements per se. NPR has had a long haul with both Williams and Mara Liasson about their FOX roles. Both of them are frequently cast as the *liberal* voice in the debates they get into. Which is wrong and certainly helps to impeach any objectivity NPR may try to claim.
Frankly I’m fine with Williams being gone from NPR. NPR is my default media and I was well and truly tired of Williams being trotted out as their Chief Black Correspondent. His commentary was lazy and full of the Beltway Wisdom and was typically quite wrong. That said, Williams has done outstanding work on Civil Rights history in long form and he should go back to that. He was horrible as a commentator.
i dont know about all this.
At the risk of becoming a villain, there is something to the “when you see someone dressed in a way that teh mainstream has considered threatening” point.
For example. If i see a big white guy with a Biced head, fatigue camo pants and big black boots, i immediately think “Aryan nation”
If you see anyone (black white hispanic) in the city wearing baggy pants, a long oversized white shirt and an obvious red or blue bandana, there is a good bet they are a gang member.
Williams is just stupid because a Muslim terrorist wouldn’t be so obvious to call attention to them self.
What an unlikely wingnut martyr.
“when you see someone dressed in a way that teh mainstream has considered threatening”
Maybe. But it is really stupid to talk about this in terms of airplanes. The people in the Muslim garb took their shoes off and took their computers out of their bags same as you did. Personally, when I get on a plane the only people I’m paying attention to are the people with the crying kids. So I can sit as far away from them as possible.
“He was horrible as a commentator.” Why? Because you didn’t like his ‘moderate’ viewpoint? Or worse, he was a ‘sell-out’ to liberals because he’s a commentator on Fox? Gee, let’s all only like people that we agree with politically.
I guess after Imus’ booting and Dr. Laura’s N-word litany, a Liberal had to be shown the door. Too bad for Juan Williams.
to be fair though…
if you watch the rest of the clip, that statement was at the beginning of a statement trying to get O’Reily to back it down a little, because whatever bigoted things you may feel in the airport security line, not all muslims are terrorists. (obviously O’R said he wouldn’t do that, because his audience didn’t need to be coddled like that, sure.)
I’ll be honest along with a. price, I’ve had that thought pop into my head in an airport. Then I realize that I’m being ignorant and go on with my day.
all that being said, NPR is above this kind of opinion crap most of the time (which is why I like it) and I feel like he’s been an embarassment to them for a while (the “you can’t use our name on fox” business). This was probably the same “yes, now we have a reason” mentality that helped CNN get rid of Sanchez. It was just the last straw.
I noted why I thought he was horrible as a commentator. He wasn’t a moderate or a liberal (although he was portrayed that way on TV) — he was one more lazy purveyor of the Beltway CW. Which is often self-serving and wrong. It is less often *news*. And it is rarely insightful.
It would be nice if Mara Liasson and Cookie Roberts were next.
NPR’s decision is theirs to make. However, it is very RARE to fire someone without meeting with them first – eye to eye – and letting the ‘aggrieved’ party have an opportunity to voice their concerns.
It kinda reminds me of how Agriculture Secretary Vilsack had Shirley Sherrod fired as she drove her car on the highway in Georgia at the behest of the White House. Ms Sherrod was wrongly fired. Likewise, Juan Williams was wrongly fired. This firing will cause a hornet’s nest in every nook and cranny of the media.
Most ‘wise’ and ‘experienced’ journalists will come down on the side of free speech here. A few,’unwise’ and ‘inexperienced’ journalists will give ’emotional’ reasons as to why NPR was justified in their actions. The latter group will demagogue this issue and will be incredulous to those in which it disagrees with.
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. O’Reilly still has his job after saying this. In fact, saying this IS his job.
NPR did talk with Williams first.
And they’ve had repeated discussions with him out his FOX appearances. Which is why I don’t think that this comment was the sole reason why he is gone.
Rick Sanchez and Helen Thomas are gone for similar reasons — saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. Don’t remember you standing up for *their* free speech rights, Pole.
And speaking of *experienced* — you have the free speech rights your employer will tolerate, right?
POLL:
Will president Obama comment on the Juan Williams’ firing?
YES
NO
More importantly, if he does comment, which side will he take?
JW
NPR
WON’T COMMENT BECAUSE HE LEARNED HIS LESSON
He better not comment on it. It does not concern the Presidency or the Obama Administration, in my view.
And Juan Williams is a liberal? Who said that? If Williams is a liberal than I must be…. uh…. what is more left that communist, whatever is more left than communist, that is what I am.
DD, that’s what’s so enigmatic of Obama – he does things he shouldn’t do and he doesn’t do things he should do.
i.e., commented on Skip Gates’ controversy minutes before a nationally-scheduled speech, commented on NYC Mosque, then had to walk it back, commented on how ‘dumb’ dem voters are (Rolling Stone, NYTimes Mag, on campaign trail).
I guess our very own Joe Biden is rubbing off on him 😉
He was right on Skip Gates.
He was right on the mosque.
The walking back for Skip Gates was wrong, but there wasn’t a walk back for the mosque.
You can return now to your regularly scheduled delusion.
When did he have to walk back what he said on the Mosque? That is a lie. And purist Dems who will not vote in 2010 are beyond idiots. They are evil and I consider them enemies.
The thugs are out full force on the airwaves campaigning to pull funding for NPR because of Williams’ firing. There is no great love for Juan over there; he serves as the token “balance”.
This is pledge month for NPR, so I suggest we support public radio
Juan Williams was awarded a $2M contract from Fox News. So I’m sure he’s sad now.
“… he serves as the token “balance”.
I actually read the entire thread wondering who would be the first of you to use the word “token” regarding Mr. Williams. Not at all surprised it was you, Mr. Cass.
Juan Williams is one of the few liberal commentators for whom I have respect. Although I listen daily, NPR already gets too much of my support. I stopped donating years ago. I’ve already contacted WSCL (@Salisbury State) to inform them they’ll never get another cent.
“Juan Williams was awarded a $2M contract from Fox News. So I’m sure he’s sad now.”
You should be overjoyed that he’ll be spreading the liberal/progressive bullshit to a larger audience.
Williams is now making more than the entire NPR news staff put together.
Why? Williams is neither liberal or progressive. He landed exactly where he aspired to be and exactly where his bullshit could be best appreciated.
“The 2005 budget was about US $120 million….”
Cassandra, look on the bright side. Miscreant’s comment is the closest any wingnut has come to admitting that Fox News is not a part of the left wing media.
That’s the thing, right? If Williams’ had been a real liberal or progressive, there is no way he’d have a contract this evening.
And I note that Fox did not rush to signup either Rick Sanchez or Helen Thomas. Nor did the wingnut contingent find the sacking of these two particularly disturbing.
When someones start a sentence with “I’m not a bigot, but…,” the second conjunction usually contradicts the first.
Well, it turns out that +/-2% of NPR’s budget comes from government funding. I can’t take back the $35 but I’m pleased to know that little Chucklebee and Bailin’ Palin pose no threat.
cass, way back at 1:29…..
I totally agree. I think William’s fears are ridiculous. But firing someone for an admitted phobia, even if they say they know it is wrong, which is what i think he was trying to do, is also wrong.
It would have been interesting if the next sentence out of his mouth was “and thats is a fear created by the politicization of this struggle, and people like you, Bill”
But Juan Williams is also a terrible commentator so that is asking too much.
Bigotry might have its locus in fear, but it’s not equivalent to fear. Fear needs to add the element of hate to become bigotry.
It seems to me that Juan Williams merely expressed a fear but he was fired for bigotry. That kind of disconnection is unjust.
Once more folks — there is more context to Williams’ issues here. No doubt that everyone thinks he got fired for bigotry, but this is not the first time he’s shown his ass on Fox. Anyone remember when he called Michele Obama “Stokely Carmichel in a dress”? Or how about when he claimed that Colin Powell only endorsed Obama because he was black. All on Fox and he was taken to the woodshed for all of it. But kos over at dKos found the NPR Employee Ethics policy, which includes:
The guy routinely stepped over the line that he agreed to to maintain his employment at NPR. This was just the last straw.
It’s true. The left does kill and eat its own.
And the right doesn’t. What happened last month again?
Indeed. But no matter how often you say it, Williams isn’t one of us, that’s for damn sure.
“…Williams isn’t one of us, that’s for damn sure.”
True. As liberal as he is, he never struck me as a fringe-dwelling, bitter Socialist.
Firing someone for expressing his opinion — and especially in the context of pointing out that he knows his fear is irrational — is about as illiberal as any act could be. Liberalism is about openness to points of view. Firing someone for saying the “wrong” thing isn’t liberal or conservative — it’s totalitarian.
“Williams isn’t one of us, that’s for damn sure.”
cass, that is a bit Beckian.
NPR’s biggest mistake is creating a martyr for the right wing. Now they can REALLY hate muslims and liberals because a black-dude is the vitctim of “liberal injustice”. Williams’ token status is about to be upgraded to “posterboy”
and they accepted more money from Soros….. NPR is a bunch of idiots. They dont seem to have anyone on thier team that can say “hey, fox news is going to be able to use this to make us look bad”… and hence really hurt the progressive cause.
They need to take a lesson on accpeting secret money and quietly firing people who dont drink the kool-aid from Murdoch.
I don’t see how that is at all Beckian — Juan Williams is not a liberal or a progressive. Full Stop. If you have evidence to the contrary, then put it up. And since Fox News isn’t in the habit of hiring either liberals or progressives you’ve got your job cut out for you.
What is Beckian is persisting in the usual poutrage in spite of Williams’ long history of violating NPRs pretty specific Ethics Rules. A thing that even they note if you’d bother to check their website. Or even the bit of the policy I posted above.
If you signup to your employer’s rules, you can’t be surprised when you employer holds you to them. Rick Sanchez and Helen Thomas *were* specifically fired for saying the wrong thing. And again — I’ll point out that their cases weren’t seen as all that illiberal.
“their cases weren’t seen as all that illiberal.”
They were by me. I don’t see any difference here. If Williams had committed fireable offenses before, they should have fired him for them then. You don’t get to censor people and call yourself a liberal, IMHO.
The difference here is that NPR does have a public Ethics Policy. And you’d think that giving people second and third chances would be in line with liberalism. NPR can’t really afford to have itself confused with shout TV or radio, and yet Williams routines participated in the worst of it against the policy he signed up to live with.
If he had no intention of living by that Ethics Policy he should have just jumped ship to FOX a long time ago.
does that stuff matter anymore?
not SHOULD it, but DOES it? If a large percentage of Americans can be told and believe that a bland news organization is an evil liberal totalitarian cult, can NPR really afford to play right into their hand? The only people who benefit from Juan Williams firing is the radical right. They get more fodder, NPR looses a few listeners, and Fixed news gets a new poster boy.
The new reality is, ethics and standards don’t matter to the American public. What matters is presentation and fear.
Where are the liberal Glenn Becks and Koch brothers? why are we liberals such a bunch in infighting disorganized jerk-offs that we are letting America slip into the hands of right wing extremism?
“And you’d think that giving people second and third chances would be in line with liberalism.”
Bullshit. It’s a matter of legality. If your organization has a policy of not firing people when they cross the line, it becomes problematic when they change that policy and start firing them.
If it’s a “policy,” that means you follow it. If you don’t, it’s a “guideline.” You can’t make arbitrary what happens when you cross those lines, unless you want to set yourself up for losing a lawsuit.
“NPR can’t really afford to have itself confused with shout TV or radio…”
As long as you’re using “afford” as a metaphorical word, let’s consider it literally: What NPR can’t afford is to lose its government subsidy.
Since NPR gets about 2% of its budget directly from the Feds, you won’t make them disappear without those funds.
And there is no problem of legality when you try to work with people to retain them and turn them loose after they keep stepping over the line. One strike and you are out isn’t an especially smart way of keeping high value people around and there aren’t many managers worth their salt who don’t try to work with people especially when the line being crossed is as fake as the NPR *objectivity* one. I would have fired him after the Stokley Carmicheal in a dress BS.
And what the right gets is immaterial here. In the main because no one is asking this right why they weren’t similarly outraged when Sanchez and Thomas were fired. They remain the hypocrites they always were and we have people on the left like a.price working his worry beads about what it looks like. It *would* look like the hypocrisy it is if we would stop worrying about how it looks and make a point of showing up the shear bloody hypocrisy of it all. For as flawed as it is, NPR is still a real news outlet. Fox is not.
If I ran NPR, I’d fire anyone who takes money from FOX.
It’s like running a restaurant where one of your underchefs is making deserts for your competition across the street… and he’s using your kitchen!
Fire sooner next time.
Saying you have an irrational fear of people dressed in traditional muslim garb is QUITE different from saying
“the jews control the media” and they should “go back where they came from” (she must have already been going senile when the Jews left Europe…. why was that again?)
Thomas also wasnt fired.
The First Amendment does not guarantee you a job.
I actually agree 100% with Geezer. Also, NPR’s CEO and President merely fit Juan Williams’ personal feelings into NPR’s Code of Ethics Policy. It was a transparent effort to wash their hands of Juan because of his affiliation with FOX.
I ‘get’ the ’employer-is-always-right’ mantra. I have been a manager of over 250 union and non-union personnel. I’ve seen every HR-Related case in the book, and sadly, I’ve had to fire over 25 people in my career.
The point is: NPR has been looking for an excuse to fire JW; they caved to the CAIR (Center for American and Islamic Relations) complaint; and found a ‘subjective’ sentence in their ethics policy to pin on JW. Finally, it is ‘Fundraiser Week’ at NPR (let’s not cause a stir among our donors).
The most obvious thing is: JW was talking about his personal feelings, not his opinion. The most telling thing about NPR is: George Soros donated $1.8 million to establish around 200 reporter jobs to cover state legislatures across the country. I’m sure there’s a certain ‘litmus test’ to become one of Soros’ soldiers. While legal, it’s certainly bad timing, and worse, shows how each side is willing to usurp democracy.
@Polemical “…shows how each side is willing to usurp democracy.”
Oh come on. Since when does allowing an employer to fire someone threaten our democracy???
Making laws to prevent firings… Now THAT can threaten a democracy.
“Making laws to prevent firings… Now THAT can threaten a democracy.”
We live in backward times. Frontwards, making firings rare enhances democracy. Banishment should be exceptional in a democracy.
“Since NPR gets about 2% of its budget directly from the Feds, you won’t make them disappear without those funds.”
In which case they should stop taking the money from the Feds.
“One strike and you are out isn’t an especially smart way of keeping high value people around …”
I’ve experienced this from both sides, management and labor. The normal process is that you cross the line once, you’re written up and warned. Cross it again, you’re written up and suspended. Cross it again and you’re fired, unless you’re really talented, in which case they keep repeating step 2.
And let’s get real — Juan Williams isn’t a high-value employee. Once upon a time he was an up-and-coming African-American columnist and commentator, but like most pundits as soon as he started branching out and the money started rolling in, he turned into a moderate voice for the establishment. He’s now about as irreplaceable as a paper clip.
there was no outcry when WAPO s”t canned him, he royally desrved it. Just sayin’
the man has been “fired” to the top:)
I find in noteworthy that Juan Williams in anger has called for the federal defunding of NPR. What a hypocrite and a coward!
Up to now, I’ve always enjoyed his analysis pieces on NPR. I was therefore upset an his being fired for what seemed to be a trivial charge. Now that his character flaws are on full display, I say good decision/good riddance!
I definitely agree that Williams is not a high value employee, but it seems clear that NPR thought he was.
The man is an analyst hack and has been for some time. He got fired to exactly where all of that hackitude would be appreciated. Glenn Greenwald has a piece noting that the wingnut blowback on this is largely about wingnuts and other purveyors of fear preserving the ability to use Arab bigotry on their minions. If that is true, then Williams has just shown that Anti-Arab bigotry is now a highly profitable business.
Last — Eric Boehlert over at Media Matters has written about NPR’s Fox Problem occasionally and as recently as 10 months or so ago he noted: