First interview with NPR’s Vivian Schiller on Juan Williams firing

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ^ | October 21, 2010 | Rodney Ho

[ontap]

Jesse Jackson said the same thing about young black males!!

[maggief]

FNC: Schiller sends out talking points to employees. FNC has memo.

[kcvl]

Nov. 11, 2008

Vivian Schiller, the longtime head of NYTimes.com’s digital efforts, has left the company, and has joined National Public Radio as its new CEO.

Nov. 18, 2009

Schiller: “The fact is, NPR takes NO sides.”

When someone discussed the regular commentaries of NPR Senior News Analyst Daniel Schorr, she claimed: “Dan Schor [sic] is a liberal commentator. I will not deny that is true. So what do we do about that? We balance his views with those of conservative guest commentators who frequently appear on our airwaves.”

But what if those conservative guests just happen to take a stand NPR likes? Case in point: on Tuesday night’s All Things Considered, NPR touted a Sarah Palin book review by “conservative columnist” Rod Dreher, who concluded: “She quotes her father’s line upon her resignation this summer as Alaska’s governor: Sarah’s not retreating, she’s reloading. On evidence of this book, Sarah Palin is charging toward 2012 shooting blanks.”

Speaking of blanks, did Dreher really read the whole book? On his Beliefnet blog yesterday, Dreher blogged at 12:35 pm that he was 100 pages in. All Things Considered starts airing locally at 4 pm. Did he really finish the book and write a script before the taping?

Read more: http://www.newsbusters.org/people/vivian-schiller?quicktabs_1=0#ixzz130ts1jYg

[tips up]

I’m no fan of Juan, but his firing is ridiculous. On the other hand, it’s nice to see the left eat their own.

[kcvl]

NYT:

NPR has received a $1.8 million grant from the Open Society Foundations(SOROS) to begin a project called Impact of Government that is intended to add at least 100 journalists at NPR member radio stations in all 50 states over the next three years.

The reporters, editors and analysts will cover state governments and how their actions affect people.

The project “creates capacity for local stations to hire reporters and to cover issues that matter that other places aren’t doing,” said Vivian Schiller, NPR’s president and chief executive. “Everything that we’re doing as relates to member stations comes down to two things: building local news capacity and making sure the content we create is available to all people across all platforms.”

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.

http://tinyurl.com/2fqx8gm

[dawn53]

Maybe this will be Juan’s “epiphany” moment and he’ll realize there is no such thing as free speech when you’re not parroting the PC line.

[Reagan Man]

Now that NPR has fired Juan Williams for being honest, may be they'll think about hiring Adam Gadahn or Anwar al Awlaki as embedded journalists to take Juan's place. If they haven't already done so.

[SC_Pete]

This woman did not come up with this on her own. She’s a bureaucrat. She got marching orders from her funders—Leftist radicals who now see Islamofascists as more useful than black people in furthering their agenda. That agenda is the destruction of the United States.

[vpintheak]

So basically and opinion guy stated his opinion a couple of times, he didn’t toe the leftist NPR line, and he gets the boot. Sound about right?

[melancholy]

Translation: NPR kowtowed to the headchoppers.

NPR kowtowed to Soros' $1,000,000 contribution yesterday or the day before!

It may very well have been a conditional contribution.

[Raider Sam]

So if Im reading her quote right, Juan was hired as an analyst to give opinions but was fired for acting like an analyst and not a journalist?

[OrangeHoof]

Good. Defund NPR/PBS/CPB now. Save taxpayers the cost.

If they want to exist without it, fine. First Amendment and all that. But let’s just defund all of it now and let them survive in the real world like everyone else. Same for the “arts”. Defund them now.

[Senator_Blutarski]

Juan appears on Fox News every day, which liberals perceive as a very bad thing. That’s the real issue.

[Calvin Locke]

What's wrong with Stokely Carmichael?

Looked him up. He was just a bitter little man in the end, blaming the US for his cancer, as in "assassination".

I think it was too early on JW's part to compare Muchelle with Stokely. JW could be prescient, but Muchelle doesn't walk the talk in public. Time will tell.

A more accurate association might be that of then Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos, with the egotistical touch of Elena Ceauşescu.

[maggief]

http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2010/10/npr_memo_to_stations_why.php

Sent: Thursday, October 21, 2010 12:05 PM Subject: Juan Williams

Dear AREPS,

Thank you for all of your varying feedback on the Juan Williams situation. Let me offer some further clarification about why we terminated his contract early.

First, a critical distinction has been lost in this debate. NPR News analysts have a distinctive role and set of responsibilities. This is a very different role than that of a commentator or columnist. News analysts may not take personal public positions on controversial issues; doing so undermines their credibility as analysts, and that’s what’s happened in this situation. As you all well know, we offer views of all kinds on your air every day, but those views are expressed by those we interview – not our reporters and analysts.

Second, this isn’t the first time we have had serious concerns about some of Juan’s public comments. Despite many conversations and warnings over the years, Juan has continued to violate this principal.

Third, these specific comments (and others made in the past), are inconsistent with NPR’s ethics code, which applies to all journalists (including contracted analysts):

“In appearing on TV or other media . . . NPR journalists should not express views they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist. They should not participate in shows . . . that encourage punditry and speculation rather than fact-based analysis.”

More fundamentally, “In appearing on TV or other media including electronic Web-based forums, NPR journalists should not express views they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist.”

Unfortunately, Juan’s comments on Fox violated our standards as well as our values and offended many in doing so.

We’re profoundly sorry that this happened during fundraising week. Juan’s comments were made Monday night and we did not feel it would be responsible to delay this action.

This was a tough decision and we appreciate your support.

Thanks,

Vivian

Vivian Schiller
President & CEO, NPR

[The Citizen Soldier]

When he does that, when anybody does that, it undermines their credibility as a journalist or in Juan’s case, a news analyst for NPR. Those two things cannot go together.

Hah! If this were remotely the standard in all of main stream media (credibility of journalists) we would have no ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN ...etc., etc.

[seekthetruth]

Simple, Juan got fired by a Marxist Organization because he was not being a nice boy.

Nice they did this during their fund-raising week!

Juan will now go much further in his career by getting as far away from NPR as he can! I like Juan and wish him the best. Maybe now he will realize he needs to think long and hard about being a “Progressive”.

[FreeAtlanta]

George Soros gave these jokers 1.8Million. What did that buy him? The first opportunity to fire anyone working with FOX or non-communist news outlets?

[SeeSac]

More fundamentally, “In appearing on TV or other media including electronic Web-based forums, NPR journalists should not express views they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist.”

Yep. You can only say what Mother Vivian approves.

[Titus-Maximus]

I caught that too. What a BS answer she gave.

NPR is full of it, all political correctness.

Let’s talk to Ford - stop funding them.