Juan Williams Fired from NPR

Sigh, no. Why does this guy need empathy when he's getting a two million dollar deal? He'll be just fine despite getting fired from NPR. He's got nothing to worry about.

 

So you'd have no problem being unfairly fired — and having the story all over the place — as long as you made some cash out of it? What price, exactly, do you put on your personal and professional reputation?

 

You really don't see the difference between getting laid off for no reason besides the company needing to save money and this situation?

And I think it's pretty debatable whether this was unfair. I'd lean toward yes, but that was a very, very dumb thing to say, especially on the air.

 

Actually reading it again, that's about as plainly racist as you can be. So, no, I don't feel sorry for someone dumb enough to actually say that on the air.

 

I thought most of the scorn being heaped here was on NPR, pure and simple. For firing someone for stating an opinion or just a human emotion because it didn't like that opinion or emotion. For revealing itself as neither fair nor balanced, and not at all above the fray.

Whether Juan Williams is headed to a soup line or cackling in the back seat of a chaffeured Maybach doesn't really matter. It has nothing to do with his right to free speech, either (checked at the door of most employers).

It's just that NPR is supposed to be loftier, more open-minded, more tolerant, more inviting of diverse opinions. And it proved it most definitely is not. It is a partisan operation pretending to be neutral, a pathetic sort of phoniness shared by too many mainstream media operations.

If it had been MSNBC firing Williams for what he said, at least that would be consistent with its mission statement. NPR is supposed to use public money to play things more down the middle.

Regarding what he actually said, people say equally bad things about Christians, conservatives, Southern folk and others all the time with minimal outrage and very few pink slips.

To me, the fact that people worry that such statements might rile up some in the group cited is verification that there are problems within that group. Everyone else is supposed to turn the other cheek or shrug off verbal garage, but no, for some reason, certain protected groups do not have to. Rubbish.

 

That's wrong too.

 

An organization full of liberals is hypocritical? Bullshit!

 

What Juan said would be like a football beat writer saying on the air that he was afraid to cover SEC games because all the fans are idiot racists. How long do you think he'd stay on the beat?

 

Clearly the terrorists have won.

 

I'd rather pay part of Juan Williams' salary than contribute to NPR.

 

I'd rather have vuvuzelas blowing in my ear than listen to NPR.

 

If he worked for NPR? Probably a while. Didn't they keep someone who said Jesse Helms deserved to die of AIDs?

This was a win-win for everyone. Williams gets a fat new contract, he's a martyr, and a ton of exposure. Fox and the right get another dead horse to beat in regards to the media/culture war. NPR can play up cutting loose the Fox guy and the attacks they are receiving to rally donors.