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Will Williams' firing affect fundraising?
Juan Williams
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Kai Ryssdal: This next story comes with a disclaimer of sorts. You hear me make it every day. Marketplace is produced by American Public Media, not NPR. So we approach the Juan Williams story with no inside information. The longtime NPR news analyst was fired Wednesday night for violating NPR's ethics policies. For public radio stations, the timing and the ensuing backlash is less than ideal. A lot of them, as you may have been hearing on your station, are in the middle of their pledge drives.
Marketplace's Janet Babin reports.
Janet Babin: Juan Williams clarified his controversial remarks on "Good Morning America."
JUAN WILLIAMS: If I'm at the gate at an airport and I see people who are in Muslim garb, who are first and foremost identifying themselves as Muslims, in the aftermath of 9/11, I am taken aback, I have a moment of fear.
But many Muslim groups were outraged by the comments, and NPR took swift action to terminate Williams. That controversy led to another one: People upset by the firing threatened to withhold public radio contributions. And this is fall fundraising week.
In Austin, KUT'S general manager Stewart Vanderwilt says he's heard from about 50 listeners.
Stewart Vanderwilt: Some are expressing concern, some are seeking more information, in a few cases canceling their support, or informing us that they will not be contributing to the station.
The complaints didn't affect KUT's fundraising. But the Williams fallout could have other consequences. Some politicians have called for cuts in NPR's federal funding. Less than 2 percent of NPRs revenue comes indirectly from federal sources. Most funding comes from member stations. But at rural stations, federal funding can account for close to 40 percent of revenue.
Andy Brimmer is at crisis management firm Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher.
Andy Brimmer: You don't pick a fight with someone who has a very large bully pulpit, and Juan Williams obviously has a very large bully pulpit.
Willams has reportedly signed a deal with Fox News for a figure large enough to fund the annual budgets of many public radio stations.
I'm Janet Babin for Marketplace.
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Why shouldn't Juan Williams be fired for saying what most people would be fired for saying at their own jobs? I work for a Fortune 500 company and I wear a company uniform. I also may not express my opinions freely while representing the company at work, or while wearing the company uniform outside of work. Each company has the right to protect their public image. Williams' comments are guaranteed to alienate moderate, law-abiding Muslims, who incidentally may also be financial supporters of NPR, so NPR has the right to discipline Williams in order to protect its image.
Let's alter Williams' comments a bit, and suppose a trusted news broadcaster were to say: "I don't go out walking at night in my neighborhood because black people make me nervous." Would this not prove to be a major liability to his employer?
But honestly, go back and read some of Williams' controversial comments from years past. They are puerile musings hardly worthy of a high school freshman's composition paper... so he should be fired just for that reason alone.
It's not the firing of Juan Williams that's the cause of the controversy, it's his firing after several decades of making non-issues out of similar and far worse comments. It's been fairly obvious for a while now that NPR is little more than a leftist propaganda mill hiding its identity in a cloak of neutrality, but this finally stripped that disguise away. Even compensating Williams wouldn't help NPR any: the problem with NPR is that its *reflex* is to applaud the most extreme, mindless and groundless criticism of the slightest hint of conservativism, but to fire anyone who expresses a normal, ordinary concern that doesn't fit with Leftist dogma.
My wife is a muslim and I find what Mr. Williams said to be racist and has no reason to be said because as a journalist he has greater influence over his followers. Hellen Thomas got booted for saying her opinion, Rick Sanchez just lost his job for saying that most media outlet is run by jews. To say that he gets nervous after 9/11 when he sees a person wearing a "muslim garb" whatever that is, Mr. Williams would have been ostersized by all people if he said the same thing about jews. But it seems that Muslims are the new whipping boy of America and it's ok to say anything bad about them because everyone just think the same no matter how wrong that is. I think Nazi Germany started that way...Shame.
NPR is a symbol for pseudo-secularism at its peak. It is okay to condemn Israel and jews (just as comedians poke fun of them), but they don't have the same courage when it comes to Muslims or Islam, It is then they hide their tails under their legs..
Juan Williams was fired from the Washington Post for sexual harassment, then slithered over to NPR much to the dismay of the real journalists in the building.
The NPR staffers and producers hated the guy because he was an egomaniac who required daily hand-holding to get through a radio piece. He's a print guy who sucked on the radio.
Making bigoted comments has gotten all sorts of folks fired over time... Jimmy The Greek, Howard Cosell, Helen Thomas, Rick Sanchez, Don Imus. Why should Juan Williams be any different? WHy do we hold him to a different standard? Because he's Black? Because he is scared of Muslims and Americans are stupid enough to share his fear?
It is amazingly sad to me to listen to the Republicans and right wing of this country proud trumpet their anti-Muslim bigotry and expect no consequences for their angry, hateful words.
I also love the yahoos who are calling for "defunding NPR." There's no such thing -- do a little homework for God's sake. You can defund CPB I suppose. Good luck with that -- you're just hurting the local TV and radio stations, many of whom are not members of NPR.
Do you even know what a funding 'source' is? I think not. There are no federal 'sources' of funding, only federal redistribution nodes. Taxpayers are the 'sources' for all things federal. Taxpayer financing of interrelated NPR/CPB is like a money laundering scheme, with shells and middlemen, with federal tax laws impacting 'private' contributions from individuals or foundations no less. That allows NPR to obfuscatingly claim whatever in terms of their 'sources' of financing. I'm now for any and all efforts to eliminate all taxpayer financing of NPR ****and**** CPB. Then we will better know how much direct/indirect taxpayer money both have received. And as a consequence, I also want to see tax deductibility end for any and all donations to NPR and CPB. Everyone who thinks NPR and CPB are worthwhile can still support them, with their after-tax. Everyone that works for a 'public' radio or TV station should polish up their resumes. Soon 'public' radio and TV stations will only be the size that the 'private' non-subsidized market can bear.
As more information surfaced, it was clear that Juan was fired for more than just some comments.
But, NPR handled this almost as poorly as the USDA with Sherrod. The performed a knee-jerk to the noise from an offended group and in the process lost a huge amount of credibility with me.
I had already provided my donation for this drive, but I am not sure I will be doing it again. I count on NPR to be independent and willing to stand above the noise, but they snapped like a twig at the first sign of pressure.
I am truly disappointed.
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