NPR fires Juan WIlliams over Muslim comments

[madbrian]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 8:14am

He's best known as a Fox 'News' contributor, but Juan Williams has been with NPR for a very long time. However, he has been fired by NPR for comments he made on Fox. Details in the link, but to summarize, he said: I'm not a bigot, but I get nervous when I see Muslims on a plane. It was part of a conversation where he was defending O'Reilly for his appearance on The View.
NPR

[latitudex1]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 10:43am

LOL. When I catch Fox News Sunday (I ain't gots no cable), Chris Wallace does his best to keep that man on topic. Too bad he was on the O'Reilly Factor.

[madbrian]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 3:53pm

As you might expect, the lunatic fringe is lining up in support of Williams. Among the loudest voices is Mike Huckabee. Yes, that's the same Mike Huckabee who called for Helen Thomas to be sacked over anti-semitic remarks.

[Q]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 4:12pm

Some also want the NPR funding taken away.

[uncageg]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 5:02pm

Q, Newt Gingrich is one of those people. He also wants their license taken away.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 5:59pm

I had to look up who he is, because I don't watch Fox, and barely listen to NPR. I find both hard to take. I have seen him, however. He could hardly be called either a conservative or a bigot. His firing is preposterous. From what I can tell, he is not a newsman, but was hired to give his comment and opinion. Of course, now the question being asked is why haven't they fired Nina Totenberg for wishing Jesse Helms and his grandchildren would catch AIDS and die? That's a good question, actually. Is it somehow worse for someone to say they are nervous when they see Muslims on an plane (you're a liar if you say your aren't) than wishing someone would contract AIDS and die? Crazy world, full of crazy people...

[wonderwaiter]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 6:32pm

Apparently he's just been signed to a multi-year contract with Fox News.

I'm stunned. I totally didn't see that coming. What a shock.

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 7:01pm

Free speech just took another hit

The founding fathers are spinning in their graves.Free speech does not mean censored speech.It means like it or not people have a right to speak their mind as abhorent as some may find it be it on the left or right.

In todays world, the speech police are everywhere.

[madbrian]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 7:10pm

"Free speech just took another hit."

No, it didn't. Free speech doesn't mean that anyone has to provide you with a forum for your opinions. No one claimed that Williams isn't allowed to be a bigot, but NPR gets to say who they provide a forum to.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 7:58pm

Funny, neither Fox News nor NPR are the government. Your employer has every right to restrict your speech as a condition of your employment (and NPR has prohibited its employees from attending the Stewart/Colbert rally because it specifically does not want its reporters/commentators to be viewed as partisan).

Williams was warned that his appearance on Fox News was an issue for NPR, and he continued to make appearances. If he was on MSNBC and said "All teabaggers are racist" all of those crowing about free speech would be asking for his head.

And, I find it ironic that Fox News, a channel which bans guests who do not follow its party line, would have the balls to start crying about free speech.

The Dixie Chicks are pointing and laughing at all of the GOP Hypocrites.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 8:11pm

I agree that NPR or any employer has a right to do what they did; but do you people who support it, really feel that Williams is a bigot over what he said? Really? And what do you think about the AIDS comment, and the panel chuckling over it? Any opinion on that hate speech?

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 8:20pm

I think Williams made a broad generalization that is based upon prejudice. I think his statement reflects a fear that has been fed by both the events on 9/11, and the media (especially Fox).

I am not sure whether Williams is a bigot. I don't know him personally and do not think the one statement by itself is enough to call him a bigot. But, he clearly expressed prejudice against Muslims. In my opinion alone, I think a bigot is a strong term, and you can be prejudiced without being a bigot.

I am not familiar with the other example, so I cannot comment.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 8:23pm

Creepy Totenberg Comment

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 8:43pm

It was inappropriate, but I have no idea whether she was warned in the past about her comments before she said this. If she was not warned, then it is an apples/oranges comparison. It was also 15 years ago, and on a show that airs on NPR. Not on another network. I have no idea what their contracts say regarding appearances on other networks - there may be different obligations and rules depending on where they appear.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 9:23pm

Regardless of when it was (actually 15 years ago it was an even worse comment), I find the comment unconscionable, and on THEIR network. A light year away from his comment on another network. Anyone who wishes AIDS on anyone and their grandchildren is a pig.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 10:20pm

You are entitled to that opinion.

Her statement was in direct response to Helms' direct opposition to AIDS research funding, and statements such as "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy." (States News Service, 5/17/8

Or, more specifically in 1995, when explaining his opposition to refunding the Ryan White Act. Helms said that the government should spend less on people with AIDS because they got sick due to their “deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct.”

Just to refresh your memory, Ryan White was a young hemophiliac who acquired HIV from a contaminated blood treatment.

So, you can have your outrage, but in light of the context, she was more making a karma comment than anything else.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/21/10 at 10:53pm

Roxy and Christine O'Donnell have so much in common. Roxy says this all the time, is he just playing dumb or does he really NOT know what the First Amendment says?

Also, I never got Juan Williams. Jaws was great but his music for Estar Wars was awful.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 10/22/10 at 12:59am

I need no reminder about victims of AIDS. I've nursed and buried more friends and relatives that anyone ever should. I don't give a flying f*ck in what context she made the comment. Making the comment makes her a pig. And NPR's continued employment of her is a disgrace. And the giggles of her panel are repulsive. I find your defense of her rather grotesque, as well.

[YouWantitWhen????]

Posted: 10/22/10 at 1:21am

Oh get over yourself.

The comments were inappropriate, and I said so. All I did was provide context of why she perhaps said what she said.

If you find context grotesque then so be it. I personally wanted to know why she said what she said.

[PalJoey]

Posted: 10/22/10 at 1:23am

I've nursed and buried more friends and relatives that anyone ever should.

Oh, really. Really?

You don't really want to play "Who's nursed and buried more friends," now do you? Really? Really?

And stop being so lily-livered about what Nina Totenberg said about Jesse Helms 15 years ago. You shoulda heard what I had to say about Jesse Helms 15 years ago...

[mominator]

Posted: 10/22/10 at 8:55am

love you PJ!!!!

[LaurenB]

Posted: 10/22/10 at 9:18am

Am quoting a blgoger from the Huffington Post article:

-----------------------------------------------------------
Jacob Heilbrunn: In Defense of Juan Williams
No one who is familiar with Juan Williams or his written record could possibly think that the man is a racist. On the contrary, he's been one of the most lucid journalists on race, not to mention a host of other matters.
-----------------------------------------------------------

I agree, I've always enjoyed Juan's point of view, even if I didn't always agree with his positions. I always found him to be a decent man. Howard Kurtz wrote that he may have been fired, not for his words, but because he said them on Fox News. I am finding it very interesting that Juan is garnering support from members of both the left and the right. NPR's loss, imo.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 10/22/10 at 10:11am

"Is it somehow worse for someone to say they are nervous when they see Muslims on an plane (you're a liar if you say your aren't)"

Umm..please don't project your own baseless fears on other people.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 10/22/10 at 10:46am

I don't think it's necessarily a "baseless" fear. The fear is linked to one of the nation's greatest tragedies. To feel that brief twinge of fear or trepidation at a sight which conjures memories of that event is not really baseless (linking the sight of a red velvet cupcake to a plane crashing into the Empire State Building might be a baseless fear, though). Nor do I necessarily connect that particular anxiety with bigotry. It is how you recognize an react to the fear that truly reveals your prejudices. If I see an angry-looking young Muslim man nervously looking around and carrying a black case or something as I'm boarding a plane, it might make me feel jumpy for a moment. I don't think there is anything baseless or bigoted about that in itself. But I would probably dismiss my own fear while reminding myself that radical terrorists exist in every religion and then sit down, buckle up, and start reading a book. If I refused to fly and tried to have the man kicked off the plane, then I would be letting my fears take control and that leads to irrational thought and behavior.

Unless the man is trying to light his shoe on fire, of course.

Updated On: 10/22/10 at 10:46 AM

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 10/22/10 at 11:00am

I against it depends on your experience. I live and work in a community with a large Muslim population. So it doesn't phase me at all. I also am aware of the effect these type of comments have on the Muslim students in my school...and to the constant slurs they face by other students at school everyday.
So yeah...to ME it's baseless.