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NPR Fires News Analyst [Juan Williams] After Remarks About Muslims

Do you agree with Juan Williams's firing?


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Looks like he got the axe:
NPR said:
NPR Fires News Analyst After Remarks About Muslims

by The Associated Press

WASHINGTON October 21, 2010, 10:04 am ET

Longtime news analyst Juan Williams, who has written extensively on race and civil rights, has been fired by National Public Radio after comments he made about Muslims on the Fox News Channel.

NPR issued a statement late Wednesday saying his contract as a senior news analyst was being terminated after Williams' comments Monday on "The O'Reilly Factor."

Host Bill O'Reilly brought on guests to discuss his appearance last week on ABC's "The View" during which Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg walked off the set in protest of O'Reilly's views on Muslims.

[...]
 
This whole thing about Juan Williams is ridiculous, but I would expect nothing less from the communist National Propaganda Radio station.

Juan has just discovered that calling himself a liberal is not the same today as it was 30 years ago.
 
What's the problem? He still has a job at Fox doesn't he?
 
George Soros just gave a bunch of money to NPR. He's on a mission to get Fox News off the air. Juan is employed at Fox News. Logical conclusion.
 
George Soros just gave a bunch of money to NPR. He's on a mission to get Fox News off the air. Juan is employed at Fox News. Logical conclusion.

Poor Fox news. If only their owner was rich.
 
Juan showed he's just not Progressive enough - so he's canned. Juan forgot to say "muslim extremists" you see. I wouldn't expect anything else from NPR or the Progressive left - they'll throw anyone under the bus if they step out of line.
 
"But when I get on a 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."

Wrong in alot of ways. I see how he got the axe. Should he have? No. I would of rather this evolved into some sort of discussion on NPR and they kept him around.
 
Do you agree with his mission?

I don't care about his mission. he doesn't have the power to accomplish it. If he wants to piss in the wind, more power to him. I'll hand him a towel.
 
Wrong in alot of ways. I see how he got the axe. Should he have? No. I would of rather this evolved into some sort of discussion on NPR and they kept him around.

I don't think it's wrong. I think he was saying what many Americans feel. Does NPR not want people who are honest about their feelings if those feelings are not considered politically-correct?
 
Move along libs... there is no benefit for you to linger here as NPR reveals its true self to those clueless ones who actually thought that NPR was an unbiased seeker of the truth! It should be embarrassing, but instead it will be written off as... justified!

I usually disagreed with Williams, occasionally agreed, but I got a sense of integrity from the man... more than I can say about NPR!
 
I don't think it's wrong. I think he was saying what many Americans feel. Does NPR not want people who are honest about their feelings if those feelings are not considered politically-correct?

We'll its not his opinion thats the problem its the misinformed statement that them purring their religion first is
A) A major blanket assumption that puts words in muslims mouths
B) Unverifiable and likely incorrect.

It was wrong in alot of ways he didnt deserve the axe for this though and I think it was a bad move on their part.
 
This whole thing about Juan Williams is ridiculous, but I would expect nothing less from the communist National Propaganda Radio station.

Juan has just discovered that calling himself a liberal is not the same today as it was 30 years ago.

Yes because we all know liberals 30 years ago weren't constantly attacked for having backed peace movements. Anyone remember the Kent State massacre of liberal college students over 30 years ago? They weren't constantly attacked for their support of women's rights. Anyone remember how the evangelical right movement came about? They weren't even persecuted in McCarthy style witch hunts more than 30 years ago. Yeah, 30 years ago being a liberal was a lot better than it is today. Maybe you'd like to push your idea of how liberals were treated to say... 1820?
 
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Soros just gave NPR 1.8 million. They need to make room for new jounolists. Juan Williams is not progressive enough for them and would have been fired eventually. What better time for them, than to fire him for something he said on FOX?
One of Soros's goals is to shut down Fox.
He is also in the open now about funding media matters, and huffington post.
 
While it may possibly look bad for "journalistic integrity," I do not think it was serious enough for firing. I think it also illustrates the lack of frankness present in some circles of journalism, whereas they are all too frank in other areas.
 
It's a sad day in America, because we just witnessed our federally funded, National Public Radio, decide that political correctness is more important than being honest.
 
It's a sad day in America, because we just witnessed our federally funded, National Public Radio, decide that political correctness is more important than being honest.

Which is why a majority of people think America is on the "wrong track".
 
It's a sad day in America, because we just witnessed our federally funded, National Public Radio, decide that political correctness is more important than being honest.

What if someone was honestly....


RACIST
cubicle-freakout.jpg



AAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!
 
Imagine all the Muslims listeners that NPR almost lost.
:lamo

Listenership was in danger of dropping from 20 all the way down to 17. Whew!
 
The misplaced value of "preventing hate speech" which has grown to epic prominence in our age would be comical if it wasn't such a cultural cancer. It is a good idea taken way to far, and is so strongly out of balance in our cultural mores as to encroach on other core values such as honesty or free speech.

By it's very nature it has to be applied to some groups and not others because it assumes a sort of "oppressor class". This is why judgmental remarks against, say, NASCAR fans or Walmart shoppers are tolerated, but certain classes get a kind of special status within this complicated and unclear system.

The fact the Juan Williams would say something clearly and pointedly that many Americans have experienced in the last 10 years, while balancing that with the good intention of being careful to protect the rights of all classes is refreshing to me, and makes me respect him more. Pretending for the sake of the cartoonishly inflated sense of harmony that is the spirit of our age is a sort of nonsense we have had enough of.

I am glad he expressed his opinion freely on an editorial program in good context with the subject.

The worst thing about this sort of judgment is we cannot, as a nation or even world, have an honest conversation about the things that are most important now without crossing some ridiculously unfair imaginary hate speech line.

Just expressing an opinion about a "protected class" is not reason to fire someone.

NPR has really turned their hand face up with this one. They just don't know they are beaten yet.
 
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I think this article from YahooNews sheds some light on the matter.

NPR terminated the contract of Juan Williams on Wednesday after comments the veteran journalist and news analyst made about Muslims on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor."

Fox News host Bill O'Reilly stirred up controversy last week on "The View" after making the blanket statement that "Muslims killed us on 9/11," a comment that led to co-hosts Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg walking off the set.

On Monday, O'Reilly asked Williams if there is a "Muslim dilemma" in the United States. The NPR analyst and longtime Fox News contributor agreed with O'Reilly that such a thing exists, and added that "political correctness can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don't address reality."

"I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot," Williams continued. "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."

The Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan wrote Wednesday morning that Williams' statement about fearing Muslims on planes is an example of bigotry. "What if someone said that they saw a black man walking down the street in classic thug get-up," Sullivan wrote. "Would a white person be a bigot [if] he assumed he was going to mug him?"

The fact that Juan Williams' comments came not only within days of FoxNews' own Bill O'Reilly making his blanket comment on The View that "muslims" attacked us on 9/11 (which he later corrected to say "muslim extremist"), but also that Williams made his statement on FoxNews' on Bill O'Reilly's show, the O'Reilly Factor. This placed NPR News in a very bad position. IMO, they had no choice but to release him. He simply rekindled the bigotry, blanket fear, anxiety and resentment towards a religious group of people all over again in the wake of all the controversy finally simmering down surrounding the building of (planned) mosque/Islamic Community Center near Ground Zero. I understand where Williams is coming from and I'm sure many people who travel frequently still exercise caution whenever they see someone of Arab/Middle-eastern decent boarding a commercial airplane. But I don't think it was a smart move for him to say so in such a "personal" manner. It would have been better for him to have just generalized his statement, i.e...

But I'm sure that there are still some people out there who when they get on a plane, if they see people who are in Muslim garb and they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I'm sure they get worried. They get nervous.

That way it's not so personal and people don't misread what he's saying. Because truthfully, I'm sure if I were to board a plane and see someone I suspect of being Muslim my mind would flashback to 9/11 and I'd certainly become much more cautious and alert. It's normal.
 
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Yeah, 30 years ago being a liberal was a lot better than it is today. Maybe you'd like to push your idea of how liberals were treated to say... 1820?

He didn't say anything about "how liberals were treated". He made a fairly good point that a liberal today might feel a little disenfranchised by the direction of his political peers in general in 2010.

I did just have the amusing thought that the firing of Juan Williams from NPR for expressing a view covered by free speech on the grounds that he was a bigot is bound to have caused some interesting conversations among the ACLU.
 
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