The Firing of Juan Williams: NPR Got It Right
Ken A. Bode
October 25, 2010
From the events that precipitated the firing of Juan Williams by NPR and the deluge of commentary and rhetoric that followed, one thing emerges with clarity: NPR president Vivian Schiller followed the proper course. The only thing NPR management might have done differently was to do it sooner.
These were the precipitating remarks: "When I get on the plane, I got to tell you (Bill O'Reilly), 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."
NPR found these words to be a violation of its code of ethics, which states that journalists should not express views in other outlets that they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist. These remarks, NPR said, "were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR."
It was not just what Juan Williams said but where he said it (Fox News "The O'Reilly Factor"), and how many times he has made similarly provocative comments. Vivian Schiller said that on several occasions in the past Williams violated NPR's code of ethics with things he said on other peoples' air.
An example widely reported in the press over the past few days is Williams' remark last year about first lady Michelle Obama: "She's got this Stokely Charmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going. If she starts talking . . . her instinct is to start with this blame America, you know, I'm the victim. If that stuff starts coming out, people will go bananas and she'll go from being the new Jackie O. to being something of an albatross."
That also occurred on O'Reilly's show, and it produced 216 comments on the NPR Ombudsman's email, many questioning why NPR put up with Williams' dual role.
NPR is not alone in requiring an exclusivity clause in the contracts of reporters and commentators who work for the network. Nor are they alone in permitting exceptions to those clauses for occasional, or even regular, appearances so long as employees abide by the ethical limitations prescribed by the home base.
Though NPR offered no further details, Ms. Schiller made it clear that Williams had been warned: "We called him on it, we had a discussion, we asked him not to do it again." Williams also had been warned that Bill O'Reilly is a professional provocateur, and to be careful.
Let me recount a personal experience brought to mind when the Juan Williams contretemps occurred. In the early 1980's, around the time the loud and confrontational "McLaughlin Group" was getting its start, I was the National Political Correspondent for NBC News. The program was taped at the NBC Washington studios, just around the corner from my office, and one day John McLaughlin asked if I would be interested in being a regular substitute panelist on the program.
I told him I would check with NBC about that and immediately went to NBC's Washington bureau chief to request that he tell me I could not appear on McLaughlin's program. He asked why, and I explained that being on that program would be like going into a bull-ring with the picador. The very essence of McLaughlin's role is to try to probe my opinions, encourage me to say something I would not say as a political correspondent for NBC.
It was an easy call. As it should have been for Juan Williams with the "O'Reilly Factor."
I have commented here before that one of the questions frequently asked of me as CPB's Ombudsman is why NPR allows Juan Williams and Mara Liaison to appear regularly on Fox News. I have never had a good answer for that, but always believed that the credibility they bring to Fox was acquired and paid for by the regular reporting and research they do for NPR.
As I write this, NPR's management has not released a full record of Mr. Williams' earlier transgressions, and probably they have said enough.
However, the response from Juan Williams has been angry and fulsome, condemning "the self righteous, ideological left-wing leadership at NPR."
Writing in a Fox News commentary titled "I Was Fired For Telling The Truth," he condemns his ouster as an outrageous violation of journalistic standards and ethics by an NPR management that has no use for a diversity of opinion, ideas or a diversity of staff. He condemns a one-party rule, one-party thinking and an enforced ideology of speech and writing. This leads, Williams says, to journalists being sent to the gulag for raising the wrong questions and displaying independence of thought.
NPR was looking for an excuse to get rid of him Williams says, adding that his firing reveals less respect for independence of thought than Richard Nixon ever displayed.
In a more cautious and balanced assessment, Alicia Shepherd, the Ombudsman for NPR, wrote that the problem centers around a "collision of values," with NPR's values emphasizing fact-based, objective journalism versus the tendency in some parts of the news media, notably Fox News, to promote only one side of the ideological spectrum.
Ms. Shepherd goes on: "The issue also is whether someone on NPR's payroll should be allowed to say something on one venue that NPR would not allow on its air. NPR's ethics code says they cannot.
"What Williams said was deeply offensive to Muslims and inflamed, rather than contributing positively to an important debate about the role of Muslims in America. Williams was doing the kind of stereotyping in a public platform that is dangerous to a democracy. It puts people in categories, as types—not as individuals with much in common despite their differences."
I have admired Juan Williams' early civil rights history, "Eyes on the Prize" and his biography of Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall. I was surprised at the seething anger at NPR that his termination uncorked.
In his Fox News commentary, Williams says, "Years ago NPR tied to stop me from going on "The Factor." He refused that request. That's when he should have been terminated.
From his commentary, it is clear that he cherishes the opportunity of "challenging Bill O'Reilly and trading ideas with Sean Hannity, calling them "two major forces in American culture." My bet is that if NPR had told Williams to stop going on Fox or go to Fox exclusively, it would have ended just as it has.
Fox News president Roger Ailes was standing ready with a $2 million check from Rupert Murdoch's treasury to welcome Williams into the fold. Ailes said, "His freedom of speech is protected by Fox News on a daily basis."
There is also some predictable blowback from this episode about cutting federal funding for NPR.
This is reminiscent of early 1995, when the resurgent Gingrich majority arrived in Congress. At the time I was serving as moderator of PBS's "Washington Week in Review," and, interested in learning about the new House majority's policy goals, I attended a public session at a conservative, Washington think tank. Right at the top of the agenda was "De-fund Public Broadcasting." This issue is like a cicada that lies buried for years until something calls it to life. Then it comes out squawking.
There is too much value in public broadcasting, too much support for NPR to be distracted, even in this toxic political environment. Like the cicadas, this idea once again will run its course and eventually go back into the ground.