Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghostwriter
Juan had every right to say what he did. NPR probably was within their legal rights to sever his contract. But what he said did not reach the level of a firing offense. Freedom of Speech be damned.
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According to the NPR Ombudsman on Talk of the Nation yesterday, this was not the first incident involving Juan Williams. She said the network has received more complaints about him than about anyone else on their roster. Some of that, she readily admitted, may be just a reaction to the fact that the other network was Fox. Ditto Mara Liason, although the ombudsman noted that she appears on what is clearly a news show, not a pundit show, and that was a large part of the problem: providing (ostensibly) news analysis on NPR and being a pundit, which calls for expressing opinions and biases, on Fox.
Otherwise, I pretty much agree with Kevin. I do think NPR tries more often than not to avoid bias, but I think the reality is that unbiased news when it comes to things like politics is a eutopian dream, not a likely reality. I still prefer NPR to just about any other news source, though it's not the only one I pay attention to, and I can use my big-boy filter and listen critically. I do the same with Fox, though I have little patience with or use for the pundit shows on any network.
Meanwhile, it's pledge drive time, and at least so far it doesn't seem to be making a difference pledge-wise here.
ETA: I somehow missed Dr. Phil's post quoted below by Ch2tf when I read the thread the first time, but I completely agree with what she said.