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Go Home They Fired Juan Williams?

JONATHAN CHAIT OCTOBER 21, 2010

They Fired Juan Williams?

BY JONATHAN CHAIT

I find it depressing that Juan Williams was fired from NPR for musing about his fear of Muslims on a plane, for the same reasons Conor Freidersdorf lays out: Being afraid of Muslims on a plane is ridiculous, because the percentage of Muslims who are terrorists is minuscule, but the bar for firing people for a single remark ought to be quite a bit higher than this.

Matthew Ygelsias applauds the firing because Williams is a mediocre, "replacement-level" commentator. That strikes me as a total dodge. Most commentators -- most members of every profession! -- are average. The question here is whether we want to create an atmosphere where commentators need to live in fear that even contemporaneous comments will be scrutinized by the strictest standards of tolerance, and a one-strike-and-you're-out policy is generally applied toward their employment.

I also opposed the firing of Helen Thomas, and Lord knows the hacks don't get much hackier than her. There's a value in stigmatizing bigotry, and there's also a value in allowing political commentators some level of freedom to opine without fearing their job is on the line at every moment. The way to steer between these two poles is to combat misguided or bigoted speech with criticism and stigma rather than firing, except in extreme cases.

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53 comments

I heard NPR issued a death fatwah against him.

- Nusholtz

October 21, 2010 at 1:19pm

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Actually, in Lake Woebegon, we're all above average, but that's another story. Firing Williams in this case is scarcely better than pusillanimous. His thought process isn't very commendable, and he could definitely benefit from a time delay filter between his brain and his mouth, but that's the nature of commentary. Compared to the whoppers that folks are telling to get elected this season, this is small potatoes.

- IowaBeauty

October 21, 2010 at 1:24pm

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The firing of Juan Williams by NPR is preposterous. Termination should happen only in extreme cases, as you say, Jonathan. And I too opposed the firing of Helen Thomas, much as I detest her.

- liberal reformer

October 21, 2010 at 1:25pm

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I feel Ygelsias's pain on this one. NPR absolutely should not have fired Williams for this "offense." Not only is there nothing wrong with what he said, there's nothing wrong with feeling as he feels. It's not bigotry to get the irrational willies from people; it's bigotry to treat people differently because of the irrational willies you get from them. The ability to speak openly about the fact that one gets the willies from some people in some circumstances is absolutely essential to the process of preventing mere emotions from becoming bigoted behavior. But Williams is a terrible "political analyst" for any network, and ought not be employed by anyone in that capacity. So NPR is a better place without him. Which makes it hard to feel too strongly sorry about the unjust proximate cause of his firing. The ends never justify the means, of course, so bad on NPR. Now if only Cokie Roberts would admit to feeling nervous around Civil War reenactors or something, then NPR could get rid of the entire, insipid category of "political analysts" that besmirch their airtime.

- rhubarbs

October 21, 2010 at 1:36pm

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"the percentage of Muslims who are terrorists is minuscule", but most terrorists are Muslims. And all too many Muslims cheer terrorist atrocities. Islam encourages this kind of behavior. And that's one way it increasingly encroaches on our freedom of speech. We cannot no longer talk openly about Islam and the presence of Muslims, who by definition profess Islam, in our country.

- amidut

October 21, 2010 at 1:45pm

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The question NPR had to answer was this: Would it fire a white commentator for saying that he feared being around blacks because of the possibility of crime. If the answer is yes, NPR would fire a white commentator for saying that, then Juan Williams had to go.

- DC Spence

October 21, 2010 at 1:56pm

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AMIDUT wrote: "We cannot no longer talk openly about Islam and the presence of Muslims, who by definition profess Islam, in our country." Oh, really? I thought I'd noticed a ton of conversation just recently about the presence of Muslims in our country. Lots of talk about a certain planned mosque in Manhattan and somewhat less talk about mosques in other parts of the country. Lots of talk about how these mosques are fifth columns for Islamic terrorists and traitors. Lots of talk about how Islam should be curtailed because it isn't covered by the First Amendment since it is not a true religion. Yeah, I was pretty sure I'd heard/read lots of talk about that sort of thing. But I guess not. Since we can "no longer talk openly about Islam and the presence of Muslims, who by definition profess Islam, in our country," I guess I didn't actually read or hear any of that stuff. Odd.

- DC Spence

October 21, 2010 at 2:00pm

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I've always thought that Williams was an annoying hack whenever he appeared on NPR. Unfortunately, the conservative chattering classes will make him a martyr. And, DC Spence, you've got it exactly correct in both of your posts.

- zardoz67

October 21, 2010 at 2:14pm

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Rhubarbs - funny, Cokie also came unbidden to my mind as I read Chait's piece. However I'm assuming she doesn't get uneasy around civil war re-enactors because apparently to her, everything is fallaciously grey.

- Nari224

October 21, 2010 at 2:17pm

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Juan Williams was also terminated because the NPR ombudsperson had received 378 emails complaining about Juan Williams presence on FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace, which is certainly journalistically superior to what Amanpour has already done to ABC's "This Week". Since NPR seems to think emails are representative of listener opinion, they got mine protesting this chilling example of political correctness, and I just told my local NPR station they do NOT get my donation this year. NPR also has warned Mara Liasson to not appear on Chris Wallace's Sunday news program. America becomes Stalin's Russia...

- K2K

October 21, 2010 at 2:22pm

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If you feel the need to qualify the beginning of a sentence with "I am not a bigot" it is probably best you don't finish the thought. I don't think he should have been fired for what he said outside of work but at some point these public broadcasters should have far less double dipping. He is publicly identified every time he goes on Fox as being from NPR, as though he represents NPR when his opinions are his own. Since he uses his affiliation with NPR to his advantage outside of work, NPR has the right to place limits on what he says. Beyond this, none of us knows the nature of his contract with NPR and Chait is presuming too much to assume he does. Do I wish Williams were not fired for this, yes. Is it my call? No.

- blackton

October 21, 2010 at 2:31pm

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DC Spence: exactly. I would submit that NPR should not fire a white commentator who admitted to feeling fear in the presence of black people in some situations. Americans needs to get over our recent practice of demanding that people be fired for expressing a wrong emotion or opinion. Imagine if we acted on this impulse as a universal principle: Every adult would in a matter of months become permanently barred from holding any job. So enough with the "fire him!" response to foot-in-mouth incidents.

- rhubarbs

October 21, 2010 at 2:35pm

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"America becomes Stalin's Russia"..yeesh, hyperbole alert. If Juan Williams were fired for saying this at a cocktail party, then yeah the hyperbole would be understandable, though Williams in Stalin's Russia would have been killed, but he said this on the AIR at a competitor's network. Again, Fox news blurbs that Williams is from NPR to their own commercial advantage, you are saying NPR has no right to put a stop to this? NPR has the absolute right to say, you work for us, you only work for us. There is not a constitutional right to work at NPR. So I suppose a spokesperson for coke, on his own time and being identified as a spokesperson for Coke, can go on TV and say how much he loves Pepsi. Or how Muslims make him feel nervous, or any of a manner of really stupid things, and suffer no consequence?

- blackton

October 21, 2010 at 2:43pm

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I believe the last time Cokie Roberts had an original thought was around the end of the Civil War.

- ironyroad

October 21, 2010 at 2:44pm

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rhubarbs, "I would submit that NPR should not fire a white commentator who admitted to feeling fear in the presence of black people in some situations." I have no idea why I have to repeat this, but he said it on AIR after being identified publicly as being from NPR. This is not something he was overheard saying at a cocktail party. Damn right NPR has the right to say to any employee, if you go on a competitors network and identify yourself publicly as working for NPR don't say anything really f-ing stupid. And what he said was really f-ing stupid. I mean, dress as a Muslim? what the hell is that? There are Lebanese Christians that dress in traditional arab fashion who have no intention of blowing up planes, and then you have jihadists who wear suits and ties perfectly willing to kill blow up planes. Williams is saying "people who look Arab scare me" Outside of clerical garb and the hijab, there is no "Muslim" clothing that people have to wear, especially men. Women are supposed to wear a head scarf, but there are women in Mexico who wear head scarves am I supposed to run away when I see one of them?

- blackton

October 21, 2010 at 2:54pm

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Wrong again, Chait. Williams wasn't canned for this incident alone, and this is certainly not a one-strike-and-you're-out policy. NPR's been trying to ditch Juan Williams for a while now. Just last year NPR forced Fox News to drop the NPR affiliation from Williams' identification. This was simply the last straw for them (or a convenient tipping point). Just like you misrepresented Jack Conway's ad to seem like there was a religious litmus test being proposed, you're getting more and more off-the-mark these days.

- thetraytiger

October 21, 2010 at 2:57pm

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Oy. He should not have been fired for this. he probably shouldn't have been hired in the first place, given his many public and stupid statements, but that's an old mistake. But the biggest problem with his firing, is it gives the whiners yet another excuse to extol the notion that a poor schlub who simply hates muslims and says so can't catch a break, not in this America. Won't SOMEONE think of the children?

- miceelf

October 21, 2010 at 3:01pm

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thetraytiger, really? I missed that, but I have not watched Fox for a long while now but I remember that it was permanently affixed to his name before.

- blackton

October 21, 2010 at 3:15pm

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Why is that bloggers like ThetrayTiger and Mr_Rationale start their statements with "Wrong!"? Is there some protocol for this. Should I be starting my statements with "right Chait" or "maybe Chait" or "idunknow Chait?"

- Nusholtz

October 21, 2010 at 3:36pm

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NPR makes a big deal about it's objectivity, no matter what the wingnuts say ... last time someone did a survey, their audience is almost equally split between self-identified liberals, conservatives, and independents, so they'd better. They have two other commentators who come on regularly on TV talking head shows (Mara Liason and Michele Norris), and both come across as very reasonable and not biased, though only when not compared to the other people on those shows, who are mostly openly aligned with one side or the other. With all that said, how could they not get rid of Williams? This is not a case of corporate misbehavior, where you put someone on a path of progressive discipline, but rather, a case of him not being able to perform the essential job function of an NPR reporter/commentor. Good decision, though there will be blowback!

- NR409654

October 21, 2010 at 3:58pm

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blackton, of course NPR has the right to do as it pleases with regard to the employment of its staff. I'm not saying NPR hasn't the right to fire Williams for any reason; I'm saying NPR shouldn't fire him for this reason. NPR should fire Williams - and Roberts - for being very bad at the job of political analysis. And really, aside from special cases of "veteran newsman" commentary like Dan Schorr or Walter Cronkite, NPR would better serve its listeners by dispensing with analysis of this sort altogether. Make more room for Radio Lab or Planet Money or the next innovation in the reporting of actual facts; people who want milquetoast recitations of the Broderian conventional wisdom know where to find it. (Every op-ed page in every newspaper in the nation, as well as every TV news network at least 20 minutes out of every hour.)

- rhubarbs

October 21, 2010 at 3:58pm

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Nusholtz, it's the McLaughlin Group approach to blogging. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSqsBfBCW7k

- miceelf

October 21, 2010 at 4:01pm

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1. NPR gets government money. I'd guess that makes them subject to the First Amendment. Even if it doesn't, where is their understanding of free speech? 2. Don't we all just love the fun Fox and the rest of the right wing nutjobs are gonna have with this? How stupid is Ellen Weiss, and how dumb any other NPR bright lights involved in this decision? Beats out Vilsack and the Ag Dep't on how fast can an organization do something idiotic without thinking about it. 3. Have you skimmed the comments at NPR's site? Looks like they're crashing the response form, and the ones on the comments pages (no, I don't have enough caffeine to read all 2,000-plus as of this morning) appear overwhelmingly supportive of Williams, on free speech grounds, need for diverse opinion range, etc. And, by the way, a pretty large number agree with him on seeing obviously Muslim passengers on the plane they're on. 4. Don't overlook the relationship between this NPR attirude on this and their biased reporting on the Middle East generally.

- LISAH

October 21, 2010 at 4:50pm

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NPR lost a perfect teaching moment and should repent immediately. This is so 1992. This is exactly why the entire diversity movement in the public square is so antiquated, exhausted. It needs to move forward and someone needs to make the first step. Does anyone in any workplace really benefit from sitting through yet another diversity seminar written 20 years ago? Or watch another ritualistic righteous firing of someone? Isn't the idea at NPR to teach? To grow? To influence public thought and stimulate healthy discussion? Hire Juan Williams (often irritating at minimum, which is irrelevant) back! Showing patience with mistakes or misunderstandings like this or (gasp) even encouraging people to be honest is the ONLY way to lance poisonous thinking. It's IT. Come on! I'm a sincere white liberal hand wringer about this stuff and I'M uncomfortable watching Muslims dressed in more traditional attire on a plane and not only are you too Mr NPR, but OTHER Muslims dressed in traditional attire probably also uncomfortable too. So what!? TALK ABOUT IT instead, let the pressure out of the system. NPR: be that safe place to try it out. I'm reminded way back in the late 80's crack madness, when when it became OK to discuss the packs of very young African-American boys roaming inner cities committing some pretty shocking crimes (I lived in DC, and it got hairy). Jesse Jackson told a story of feeling terrified watching one of these groups approach him on a dark street. After that, the pressure was released and fair or not, who cares - it became OK to stop being so defensive and knee jerk and get down to trying to fix the problem in an inter-disciplinary way. We need need groundrules in the sane media (Fox News is like a drag show at this point, can we please leave them out of this discussion?) and marketplaces of America. This firing is so wrong precisely because it shows no evolution in this discussion at all. Show some leadership NPR!!! How else can people reach across difference, dispel stereotypes and learn besides being open?

- WandreyCer

October 21, 2010 at 5:08pm

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miceelf, that's funny. You have enlightened me. I'm glad I got to see it.

- Nusholtz

October 21, 2010 at 5:09pm

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Liberal and JC, et all - you are muy macho with your nose-held support of Helen Thomas. I think she needed to be fired pronto. For me, she hit and crossed a boundary. NPR - where is that boundary?

- WandreyCer

October 21, 2010 at 5:10pm

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I think Juan deserved to be fired because of his connection to the New Black Panther Party. It is obvious from his "garb" that he considers himself "first and foremost" a black man. Which is precisely the way the members of the NBPP regard themselves.

- Geoff G

October 21, 2010 at 5:13pm

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Yes, Wandrey -- just right.

- LISAH

October 21, 2010 at 5:30pm

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There's no hope for Muslims in this country when hand wringing liberals like Wandrey can freely admit to worrying about Muslims in traditional garb on planes. Unbelievable ...

- NR409654

October 21, 2010 at 5:50pm

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Alright, Nusholtz, maybe the "wrong again" was over the top, but please don't lump me in with Rationale. The larger point still stands: that on two high-profile occasions in the past week JC has elided some important facts in the course of siding with Juan Williams and Rand Paul. In Williams' case, Chait implies that this was an off-with-his head moment, when in fact NPR has been distancing itself from Juan Williams for years now. http://tinyurl.com/279jcbt In the Paul's case, Conway's ad never implied what Chait attributed to it, that it's unacceptable to be non-Christian. The ad actually asserted that Paul had mocked Christianity in the (admittedly distant) past and implied that he still held those views. This while Rand Paul has presented another image entirely to Kentuckyans. It probably not politically smart for the campaign to be directly associated with the ad, but "disgusting" it was not.

- thetraytiger

October 21, 2010 at 6:09pm

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LISAH, what does the First Amendment have to do with it? Even if accepting government money made a company as subject to First Amendment limitations as Congress itself - which is patently absurd, but even granting that obviously silly idea - what part of the First Amendment says that a person has a right to say whatever he wants and never ever lose his job for it? Please quote for us the text of the First Amendment that says this. In point of fact, the only First Amendment issue here is NPR's right to free speech and association. An employer has the right not to associate himself with employees who act in ways that do not comport with the messages the employer wishes to convey. Juan Williams has every right to go on TV and say whatever he wants, and NPR has every right to fire Juan Williams if it doesn't like what he goes on TV to say, and nobody's freedom of speech is in any way curtailed by either event. Juan Williams is just as free today to go on TV and say whatever he wants as he was yesterday.

- rhubarbs

October 21, 2010 at 6:24pm

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LISAH - where is your understanding of the first amendment? What part of "Congress shall make no law ... or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press..." has been violated? NPR is not the Congress last I checked. It is am employer, and Williams an employee. That they receive (some) money from various government institutions is totally irrelevant. If nothing else NPR presumably has a "no hate speech" policy, like most workplaces, and has some Muslims in its employ. Try pulling this sort of stunt in any major corporation and see how well it works. The first amendment protects your right to say what you want. It in no way compels your employer to ignore it. You know what is most curious here? The whole "the first amendment allows you to say what you want, but you have to be willing to suffer to consequences" apparently only applies when you say something nasty about Republicans. As the Dixie Chicks found out.

- Nari224

October 21, 2010 at 6:26pm

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Also, NPR doesn't get government funding as part of its regular budget. According to available information, even the competitive public grants that NPR wins account for only 1-3% of their total budget. They're a private company, so let's retire the 1st amendment trope.

- thetraytiger

October 21, 2010 at 6:27pm

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Sorry, I should correct the previous post. NPR is a private organization, not a company. Apparently they're a tax-exempt 501(c)3. Nevertheless, as rhubarbs said, NPR still has the right to disassociate themselves from an independent contractor like Juan Williams who undermines his ability to provide trusted analysis with his history of objectionable comments.

- thetraytiger

October 21, 2010 at 6:40pm

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blackton, here is NPR's Ombudsman's response to last year's controversy over Juan Williams' remarks in which he said that "Michelle Obama [was] like Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress." http://www.npr.org/blogs/ombudsman/2009/02/juan_williams_npr_and_fox_news_1.html "As a result of this latest flap, NPR's Vice President of News, Ellen Weiss, has asked Williams to ask that Fox remove his NPR identification whenever he is on O'Reilly. (2/11/09)"

- thetraytiger

October 21, 2010 at 6:49pm

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Nari224, rhubarbs, et.al. -- okay, maybe I stretched it -- but as little as it is, NPR gets federal money -- and there have been cases -- universities whith federal grants, e.g., -- where that money gave the feds the right to assert, e.g., adherence to federal requirements....in any case where the hell does a media company get off limiting speech? That's exactly what they're doing in firing Williams -- has nothing to do with his being on Fox. They put up with that for what? a decade? Now their poor l'li liberal bleeding hearts were offended, so they fired him over something he said? Whether or not the 1st Amendment specifically reaches this situation, it would be nice if NPR adhered to its spirit.

- LISAH

October 21, 2010 at 7:09pm

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Fair enough NR409654, I didn't complete the thought - but I stand by it. I feel uncomfortable but I certanibly don't indulge every feeling I have or encourage it. I just notice it, and try to stay objective about where that feeling comes from. I'm ashamed but I think its much healthier to be honest. Look, everyone in this country - in the world - has had numerous ugly and traumatic images shoved in our consciousness in the last decade. We're allowed to not be evolved about our unconscious responses. Excuse us! What we're not allowed to do is indulge that nonsense and to not stay vigilant about stereotyping. Like I inartfully said, I have a traditional Muslim friend who told me - while nervously laughing - that she felt nervous getting on a plane home with other Muslims in traditional dress. She was reacting to stimuli she's grown up with, not indulging in bigotry. In any case, there is no way of lancing this poison of utterly irrational anti-Muslim bigotry that has exploded since 9/11 except to wade in and dredge it out. Maybe I'm hopelessly idealistic, but where things stand is more airless duality that is getting is nowhere I think NPR could really help in this.

- WandreyCer

October 21, 2010 at 8:34pm

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blackton - I meant Putin's Russia, where journalists are still intimidated if no longer gunned down on the street. Chris Wallace no longer identifies Juan or Mara Liasson as being with NPR when they are at the roundtable, which is actually to NPR's detriment - I thought their analysis and opinions were very important to reach the viewers who are FOXnation. I can not believe this actually got me to watch the first ten minutes of Bill O'Reilly (a first), to hear what Juan Williams had to say. He will be substituting for O'Reilly on Friday night. LISAH made a good point about the NPR bias in covering anything Israel, but, as a longtime listener, I have been increasingly concerned with their drift away from objective reporting, and, even more disappointed with the less depth in reporting. It is as if hyper-partisanship has infected the entire media to some degree. What will we have when Bob Schieffer retires? NPR was supposed to be non-partisan. And they have just handed FOXnation a renewed effort to cut ALL federal funding. NPR was politicized during the Bush43 era, and now it is going to happen again. Complicated by George Soros $2million gift just this week. Way to go NPR - hand the far right a lightning rod to play with!

- K2K

October 21, 2010 at 8:48pm

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Hm, I now wonder what would happen if an identifiable FOX commentator went on NPR's All Things Considered and said that s/he was made a bit uneasy by the sense that there was a racist component to the Tea Party campaign against Obama.

- ironyroad

October 21, 2010 at 9:05pm

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Criticism and stigma? Since when does that actually work?

- cspencef

October 21, 2010 at 9:14pm

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The hysteriac K2K is too funny. America is now Stalinist? Then why isn't he running for the hills? It must be dangerous for him to be posting out here.

- liberal reformer

October 21, 2010 at 9:58pm

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irony: Terry Gross did that with Sean Wilentz on NPR's "Fresh Aire". Neither was uneasy as they demonized tea partiers. Jeffrey Goldberg "NPR Doesn't Feel 'Comfortable' With Controversy" Oct 21 2010, 9:40 PM ET http://www.theatlantic.com/personal/archive/2010/10/npr-doesnt-feel-comfortable-with-controversy/64984/ "An anonymous NPR executive tells The Washington Post's Paul Farhi that Juan Williams' comments brought "'a huge storm of criticism' to NPR, even though Williams spoke on Fox, according to a senior news executive who asked not to be named because NPR hadn't authorized him to speak on the record." The executive went on to say: "Everything he says on Fox comes back to us and it has for years. We were never comfortable with his comments" on Fox. We can't make corrections or apologies for what he says there. It's very problematic." To which I say, to this anonymous executive, so what? So what that it comes back on you? So what if you weren't comfortable? Is your job to avoid controversy at all costs? Is it NPR's job to make people comfortable? Thank God Andrew and Ta-Nehisi and Fallows and Megan and I and all the rest work for a publisher with guts. Yes, this sounds like a suck-up post, but it's true." [Clive Crook has a more scathing post bashing NPR that is also at The Atlantic website.] libref: I meant Putinist. I am commenting from the hills, alas, hills infested with too many intolerant illiberals who think they are liberals, like you. The rest of us have guns in our pick-up trucks :)

- K2K

October 22, 2010 at 12:15am

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NPR stands for National Palestine Radio.

- streaming

October 22, 2010 at 12:50am

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"... where the hell does a media company get off limiting speech?" First off, nobody is "limiting" anybody's right to speak. Juan Williams is not in jail, like Liu Xiaobo, to punish him for what he said, or to prevent him from speaking. Williams is as free to say whatever he wants, wherever he wants to say it, as he was on Monday. I don't mean to pick on LISAH; it's just that she gives voice to a very common misperception of the basic meanings of liberty and rights. It's related to the cries of "tyranny!" from the teabag right. Tyranny isn't Congress passing a $400 tax on people who don't buy health insurance; tyranny is a dictatorship that throws you in the gulag or puts a bullet in the back of your head to shut you up; tyranny is an unelected government that seizes your property to give it to its supporters. Losing your job because you violated your employer's code of professional conduct? That's freedom: you are free to say what you want, and your employer is free to fire you for it, and the government keeps its hands off you both. Second, to the extent that this can be counted as "limiting speech," then that is precisely the job of a media company. It's what every editor everywhere in the history of publishing has done. If Williams were a print journalist, and he wrote an op-ed defending his own visceral discomfort with fellow citizens of a different religion, his editor would have every right to cut that statement from his article and order Williams to rewrite it without the admission of personal prejudice. Every publication or broadcaster has standards; editors enforce those standards every day. If Williams doesn't want to abide by the standards of any particular media company, he can choose not to work for that company. I'd still rather NPR not have fired Williams, at least not for this and not at this time, but the hyperbolic invocation of "rights" and "tyranny" and "Putin" is not just ridiculous. It's dangerous. If anywhere near a majority of the citizenry can no longer distinguish between tyranny and freedom, which appears to be the case on the right, then American liberty cannot long endure.

- rhubarbs

October 22, 2010 at 8:30am

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Can we retire "hysteric" as a way of refering to the kind of thinking/rhetoric that K2K engages in? The victimization, hypersensitivity, martyr complex, and hyperbole aren't especially or particularly related to female genitalia, phantom or otherwise, and a hysterectomy wouldn't cure it. Sorry- the gender implications of this usage really grate on me.

- miceelf

October 22, 2010 at 9:22am

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micelf goes to heaven. I've tempered my opinion a tad this morning. NPR has actually been more than patient with Juan Williams, describing Michelle Obama as Stockely Carmichael in a dress is not an "alternative opinion." It's mysoginst hate speech and he should have been fired right then. Lesson learned for both me (sincere white liberal trying too hard) and NPR.

- WandreyCer

October 22, 2010 at 10:29am

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Rhubarbs -- won't get into the semantics of liberty, freedom, tyranny, et.al. My reaction to the Williams episode centers specifically on NPR's -- and for that matter, much of the media's ---terminal political correctness when it comes to reporting and expressing opinions on Islam today. That's why the station's management reacted the way it did. Williams clearly expressed a widespread feeling. Just check the comments on NPR's own site -- they make me wonder just how much of the reaction came from listeners and how much from the likes of CAIR. There's a real need to have reasonable discussion on the realities and issues as to why various publishing outlets fear to print, say, the Danish Mohammed cartoons, or in a more recent example, the Non Sequiter cartoon from a few weeks ago. Is it fear of Islamic violence? Liberal weepiness for what it perceives as a ganged-up-on minority? Having the discussion is important. So I disagree with you on whether media companies, print or broadcast, have the "right" or whatever to fire people because they disagree with the opinions they express. They sure have the power and position to do so. Those are 2 different things. What happened to the usefulness of a diversity of opinion?

- LISAH

October 22, 2010 at 3:55pm

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LISAH: "diversity of opinion?" creates controversy, which makes NPR uncomfortable. As Jeffrey Goldberg asked "Is it NPR's job to make people comfortable?" Just because one person says something should not be a dangerous thing. Reminds me of that July 2008 New Yorker cover (Michelle as a Black Panther with Obama as a Muslim in the Oval Office) that had Obama supporters in Brooklyn forcing newstands to remove that issue. I still have copies of those posts from Brooklyn for Obama. It was chilling to have people trying to persuade me that a New Yorker cover was too dangerous, and HAD TO BE REMMOVED FROM SALE. Even more chilling when the Obama campaign banned the New Yorker's Ryan Lizza or any other writer on the campaign from access as "punishment" for some months after. Chilling. After reading a range of opinions, it does seem as if having an NPR employee as a regular voice on FOXnews is what made NPR most uncomfortable, followed by pressure from CAIR, the front for Political Islam. Really ironic for NPR to not want a liberal voice on FOXNews - how else will any liberal points penetrate FOXnation? The local stations are bearing the brunt - they do get on average, 10% of their funding from the government, and NPR's really tacky way of firing Juan Williams is what is going to resonate to the local affiliates if a GOP congress defunds all public broadcasting. Low hanging fruit for cutting spending. Let the listeners and foundations pay. I wish C-Span radio was national instead of just the one station in D.C. Unfiltered primary sources are what really stretch the brain. One possible good outcome will be if there is any echo about how this demonstrates the hyper-partisanship that is further dividing America. If NPR can not tolerate one of their voices on Fox, we will never find out what we have in common with each other. America is Bowling Alone in Silos.

- K2K

October 23, 2010 at 1:01am

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"that s/he was made a bit uneasy by the sense that there was a racist component to the Tea Party campaign against Obama." but that's not an honest analogy of what Williams said. You are implying that his comments can be summarized as "..he was made a bit uneasy by the sense that there was a terrorist component to the Muslim-American minority..." But he did not say that. What he did admit was his personal apprehension in being on a plane and seeing Islamically-garbed individuals sitting around the plane. However, openly displayed Muslims in our culture are not those who should inspire fear. The 19 highjackers were indistinguishable in their dress from the other passengers. They were actually invisible. Has there ever been a terrorist attempt in the US or Europe perpetrated by Muslims dressed as Muslims? I would be very surprised if there were. Any explicitly different person attracts attention of some sort and it would seem to me that those who are engaged in stealthy operations like terrorism would try to attract as little attention as possible. I'm sure Williams is aware of this simple logic and is trying to exorcise that irrational fear by talking openly about it.

- noga1

October 23, 2010 at 7:34am

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"Matthew Ygelsias applauds the firing because Williams is a mediocre, "replacement-level" commentator." That would suggest that Yglesias is in a better position to make that judgment. Yet I've never been much impressed by Yglesias' record as wildly straying from the mediocre and replacement-level. Here is an example of what passes for wisdom and insight in his case: "Since I’ve got Israel on the brain, it strikes me in this regard that it’s perhaps unfortunate that the early Zionist leaders decided to revive Hebrew rather than use the Jewish state to ensure the continued existence of Yiddish and Ladino. The successful revival is enormously impressive as a pure example of clear ideological vision but that’s a lot of lost literature and such. " http://noah.simonstudio.com/2010/10/leftists-reminisces-yiddish-vs-hebrew.html Why would a Jewish state reveling in its authentic cultural renaissance wish to define itself by diasporic jargons he does not explain. Speaking about mediocrity and such.

- noga1

October 23, 2010 at 8:05am

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Lack of clarity and teachable definitions between "Islamic" and "Islamist" is claimed by the authors of this article to be the source of trouble: "At least a few on the left are defending Islamism because they think that they are defending Islam. Recently, a European policymaker told us that she had become sympathetic to Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) because “in the post-September 11 world, I wanted to defend Islam.” Well, the AKP, and other Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood in the Arab world, do not represent Islam. These Islamist parties, even when not using violence, stand for an ideology that is illiberal to its core—for instance, its refusal to recognize gender equality. In the same way that communism once claimed to speak for the working class, Islamism claims to represent Muslims. By defending radical Islamist movements, the left is helping only to give Muslims a bad name. The left ought to side not with so-called moderate Islamist parties, but rather with liberal Muslim movements, such as the Republican People’s Party in Turkey and the pro-democracy movement in Egypt, which support gender equality. The right, on the other hand, often targets Islam while thinking that it is attacking Islamism. Banning the building of minarets, as Switzerland did, is exactly the wrong thing to do. The problem is not a mosque; the problem is a mosque used to promote violence, jihadism, and illiberal Islamism. The crimes of Al Qaeda, Hizbullah, and other groups are rooted in jihadist Islamism, which advocates violence to impose extremist dogma on Muslims and non-Muslims alike. " http://www.newsweek.com/2010/10/22/is-it-islamic-or-islamist.html#

- noga1

October 23, 2010 at 8:55am

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Noga, K2k: I think you're seeing the wrong point. I wasn't attacking Williams so much as being highly skeptical of FOX's support of his right to say what he wants without being fired. My example was not about someone on a liberal program (e.g. Terry Gross) talking about the racist strand of the Tea Party but about the presumed fate of a FOX commentator talking on NPR about that. To put it crudely, I believe that anyone from FOX who committed the equivalent of Williams's offense would be fired by FOX without delay. Hence the dripping hypocrisy of their commentary on this case.

- ironyroad

October 23, 2010 at 11:51pm

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"Hm, I now wonder what would happen if" "I believe that anyone from FOX who committed the equivalent of Williams's offense would be fired by FOX without delay. Hence the dripping hypocrisy of their commentary on this case." "the presumed fate of a FOX commentator talking on NPR about that." ____________ Wonder, belief and presumption do not provide a solid foundation for making the sort of summary judgments you are making here. I don't watch Fox but I know they have as much of an agenda as MCNBC only in the opposite direction. Still, if I were to declare them hypocritical, meaning unfit to comment on any case where universal principles ought to be applied, I would hope to do so on more than just my natural objection to their politics. I know you understand what I'm talking about since you made a similar point in our conversation about el-Fadl.

- noga1

October 24, 2010 at 6:57am

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