Fire Away?

Could NPR handle the firing of Juan Williams any worse?

NPR does not see Williams termination as a “...First Amendment issue.”

NPR believes it is an ethics issue, NPR’s ethics code states that journalists “should not express views” in other outlets, like TV shows, that “they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist.”

Sounds like censorship, which makes it a First Amendment issue and the scientific community is united in that fact.

NPR chief executive Vivian Schiller, degraded Williams by saying the views that got Williams fired should remain “between him and his psychiatrist or his publicist.”

Now that's more inline with NPR views that have been expressed previously by Nina Totenberg publicly wishing for the late GOP Sen. Jesse Helms to die a painful AIDS-induced death to NPR affiliate employee Sarah Spitz pining for radio talk show giant Rush Limbaugh's death on a journalists e-mail list.

Interestingly, Schiller was a senior vice president and general manager of New York Times.com prior to joining NPR in 2009.

That would explain the condescending tone in this article that seems to defend Schiller.

NPR had to know what they were getting when they hired Williams in 1999, because he had been working at Fox News since 1997.

I think Williams' days were numbered in the fiberal world when he defended Bill Cosby's criticisms of the black community and then he took it further in 2006 by writing a book.