When NPR shocked many by axing commentator Juan Williams for comments he made on Fox News about fearing Muslims on planes it sparked a battle to define exactly what his firing meant…
Was it smothering free speech? Zero tolerance political correctness gone mad? A consequence for bigoted comments that if uttered by a Pat Buchanan about African Americans would have sparked a firestorm? Was Williams violating his NPR agreement’s terms after being warned? Was an employer exercising its right to terminate an uncooperative employee or independent contractor?
In reality, Williams’ firing – which netted him a nice $2 million expanded contract consolation prize from Fox News as Roger Ailes’ high-profile “So there!!” to NPR – involved several of these. But the real motor driving this controversy is differing world ideological views.
Both NPR (and its fans) and Fox News (and its fans) have a different set of political assumptions. Foxers see NPR as a left-wing-slanting outlet feeding off public money. NPRers see Fox News as a right-wing propaganda machine. Others see NPR as more moderate than the late, unlamented Air America progressive talk network and more objective than Fox. Williams seemingly tried straddling all sides
Who could have predicted that Williams, the 56-year-old Panama-born journalist who worked on the Washington Post for 23 years, would be controversial? But when he spoke to Fox’s Bill O’Reilly he thrust himself in the middle of America’s 24/7 ideology war:
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Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.