Legal Commentary

NPR Terminates Juan Williams Over Anti-Muslim Comments

By Jeralyn

NPR commentator Juan Williams got the axe last night for comments he made Monday on Bill O'Reilly's Fox News show. The context:

O'Reilly has been looking for support for his own remarks on a recent episode of ABC's "The View," in which he directly blamed Muslims for the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

Williams' comments:

"Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, 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."

Williams also warned O'Reilly against blaming all Muslims for "extremists," saying Christians shouldn't be blamed for Tim McVeigh.

In announcing the firing, NPR said: [More..]

[H]is remarks "undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR."

In my view, Williams has lacked credibility for years. He's a conservative who pretends to be progressive on some issues. NPR has known this and struggled with it for a long time, yet they kept him on, demoting him from journalist to "analyst" (i.e. pundit.) Good for NPR for finally getting rid of him. Better late than never.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on October 21, 2010 (boomark / email).