Posted on 10/21/2010 9:58:32 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Call me lucky. I had a pre-scheduled interview this morning with NPR CEO Vivian Schiller this morning before her speech at the Atlanta Press Club Newsmakers luncheon at the 191 Club in downtown Atlanta.
So lo and behold, the entire Juan Williams firing blew up the past 24 hours. I happen to be the first person to talk to her about it. Here is an abbreviated Q&A:
Q: Okay. What happened?
A: Let’s state a couple of facts. Juan is not an employee of NPR. He’s an independent contractor. He’s not NPR staff. He’s an NPR analyst. We have a contract with him for analyst opinions to provide news analysis. He is not a columnist or commentator. He also has an on-going relationship with Fox News. Mara Liasson is also on Fox News and is a full-time staffer. We accept that’s a whole other issue. However, we expect our journalists, whether they are news analysts or reporters to behave like journalists.
Q: So did Juan really get fired over just those Muslim comments? [He said he was uncomfortable with Muslims dressed in traditional garb on airplanes on Fox News yesterday.]
A: There have been several instances over the last couple of years where we have felt Juan has stepped over the line. He famously said last year something about Michelle Obama and Stokely Carmichael. [The quote on Fox News last year: Michelle Obama "has this Stokely-Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going" and that she'll be an "albatross" for President Obama.]. This isn’t a case of one strike and you’re out.
Q: So this is obviously not an isolated incident.
A: There’s so much misinformation on the blogosphere, it’s nuts. This has been an on-going issue. 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.
Q: Have you done this before with other analysts or reporters?
A: It’s impossible to answer that. Every circumstance is different and would create false parallels.
Q: As you mentioned, Mara Liasson appears on Fox News. Is there an issue with Fox News?
A: No. She behaves on Fox as a journalists. I have no issues with anything she has said on Fox. This is not about Fox News. It’s not about a political agenda. This is not about even validating or invalidating [Williams'] feelings.
Q: Mike Huckabee is now saying NPR has discredited itself and should have federal funding revoked.
A: Yes, I heard that. This has become a political issue. My God, I’m shocked!
Q: Could NPR live without federal funding?
A: Let’s go on a sidebar. There’s a misperception about federal funding and public radio. There’s the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They receive $90 million a year and a vast majority goes to member public radio stations. Those stations pull in more than $1 billion collectively a year. It’s significant and important but not even close to the lion’s share of revenues for public radio. NPR gets no allocation from CPB. Zero. We are a private 501(c)3. We’ve had journalists call up and ask what department of the government we report to. That’s laughable. Have you listened to our shows? We do apply for competitive grants from the likes of the Ford Foundation and the Knight Foundation. As a result, some money from CPB does come to us when we win grants. Depending on the year, it represents just one to three percent of our total budget.
Q: What is your annual budget?
A: $160 million a year from station fees and dues, corporate underwriting, philanthropic contributions from individuals and corporation and earned income and earnings from our endowment.
Q: How healthy are you?
A: We had some issues the last couple of years and went into deficits. But we’ve regrouped and we’re back on track.
More to come. The luncheon is going to start. I’ll see what else I can get from that.
NOTE: I am a board member of the Atlanta Press Club.
Jesse Jackson said the same thing about young black males!!
FNC: Schiller sends out talking points to employees. FNC has memo.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
NPR kowtowed to Soros' $1,000,000 contribution yesterday or the day before!
It may very well have been a conditional contribution.
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?
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.
Juan appears on Fox News every day, which liberals perceive as a very bad thing. That’s the real issue.
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.
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
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.
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”.
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?
Yep. You can only say what Mother Vivian approves.
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.
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