Very interesting…
Political commentator Juan Williams was fired from NPR for this statement he made on The O’Reilly Factor as a contributor for NPR.
Within 24 hours, Mr. Williams’s role with Fox News was greatly expanded as it was announced that he signed a new contract with them.
Anyone surprised?
This sounds VAGULEY familiar… Find a way to get terminated from your job (Part 1, Part 2) and end up working for Fox News.
NPR was more than fair. On several occasions they gently reminded him that he was in violation of their standards. The statements made, NPR felt, did not reflect their ethics code and Mr. Williams was subsequently terminated for violating them.
On Monday, Bill O’Reiley’s producer Jesse Watters “interviewed” NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller.
Fox has already gone on the offensive attacking NPR. Fox News Cheerleaders Commentators Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee were calling for a reducing in their funding.
I doubt that Sarah Palin could survive an NPR interview. Again… how did she do when interviewed by Katie Couric of CBS?
The Juan Williams NPR Firing/Fox New Hiring has exposed something that we may have known but ignored until now: the need for better funded unbiased informative public media.
People like Palin, Huckabee, etc. want to cut NPR’s funding because they would not survive an interview where they would have to defend their outrageous positions, provide intelligent thought, and they want only ONE voice in the media: theirs. They want to corner the market on OUR media.
All this complaining about funding NPR is simply unwarranted. Simply put, Fox News is being a bully cry baby bitch.
NPR is an easy target. Their budget is $440 million compared to the multi-billion dollar corporate empire that is Fox News. Our nation barely spends under $1.50 per capita for the funding of public media in this country. Canada spends $22 per capita, while England spends $80. If there is any wonder why the US does not have a strong BBC and/or CBC equivalent, there is a good reason.
Here is another thing to consider: Where does the US rank in terms of democracies? Not #1, but rather #17. If we spent the same amount of money in public media funding that Sweden and Norway do per capita (rank #1 and #2 on the list) NPR’s budget would be close to $30 billion.
The point I am making is that we need strong media responsibility and journalistic integrity. Even though Fox News is flexing its muscle, they do not have the journalistic chops that NPR and PBS displays with quality programming.
Because we do not have a strong public media presence in this country, we are left with this…
Mr. Murdoch, this song is for you!
1 comment:
Michael, NPR does not receive federal funding. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting does, and it distributes its money mostly to local stations. So the right wing reactionary nut jobs have a moot point.
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