NPR terminates Juan Williams after his Muslim comments on Fox News

[TeamJordan23]

NPR Ends Williams' Contract After Muslim Remarks

by David Folkenflik

PR News has terminated the contract of longtime news analyst Juan Williams after remarks he made on the Fox News Channel about Muslims.

Williams appeared Monday on The O'Reilly Factor, and host Bill O'Reilly asked him to comment on the idea that the U.S. is facing a dilemma with Muslims.

O'Reilly has been looking for support for his own remarks on a recent episode of ABC's The View in which he directly blamed Muslims for the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Co-hosts Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg walked off the set in the middle of his appearance.

Williams responded: "Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. 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."

Williams also warned O'Reilly against blaming all Muslims for "extremists," saying Christians shouldn't be blamed for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

But strong criticism followed Williams' comments.

Late Wednesday night, NPR issued a statement praising Williams as a valuable contributor but saying it had given him notice that it is severing his contract. "His remarks on The O'Reilly Factor this past Monday were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR," the statement read.

Williams' presence on the largely conservative and often contentious prime-time talk shows of Fox News has long been a sore point with NPR News executives.

His status was earlier shifted from staff correspondent to analyst after he took clear-cut positions about public policy on television and in newspaper opinion pieces.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130712737&ps=cprs

[hedgehog]

1. How ironic! Over the years, how many white people have been nervous when

Juan Williams followed them down the street or into an elevator!

[OHdem10]

2. Just a thought?? Were there other grievances NPR had against

Williams and the Muslim bit brought things to a head???
Not necessarily about Muslims but put them together???
One incident--firing??? Just thinking out loud.

[rocktivity]

3. Hasta la vista, Juan.

Ooops--was that bigotry?

:hi:
rocktivity

[beac]

4. Good riddance to bad rubbish. n/t

[vaberella]

5. I never spent much time on NPR--mainly for their right wing crap.

And Juan Williams was one of their hacks. Huh...I'm not surprised.

[Colobo]

6. I'm glad he was honest about his prejudices.

Sorry that he got fired, but I think people should open up when talking about this topics, so that they can confront their own prejudices.

[zulchzulu]

7. Wow! The National Petroleum Network cans a Fixed Noise lackey

Next!