There are two reasons why I’ve never listened to NPR (formerly National Public Radio). The most important is that I prefer listening to popular music; the other is that NPR has a reputation for being high-brow, while I’m generally known as a philistine. Although I am not an NPR listener, I still take umbrage at its decision this past week to fire Juan Williams for his comments about airplane passengers in Muslim garb.
Some liberals have defended Juan’s firing by arguing that freedom of speech doesn’t guarantee a person’s job, but this is clearly a straw-man argument. No one is arguing that a media company shouldn’t be able to fire someone for saying something controversial. See my main man, Don Imus. Most reasonable people (and the law) accept that an employment-at-will relationship can be severed by either party for whatever reason (except for illegal discrimination, etc.) But just as an employee must be willing to accept the possibility of termination for exercising his free-speech rights, a media company must be willing to accept public disapproval for exercising its employment-at-will rights.
Public disapproval is pounding on NPR for two reasons:
- Juan William’s comments weren’t controversial. He merely expressed a common human failing, that of his emotions over-riding his reasoning. Jesse Jackson made a more problematic statement a few years ago when he said he got worried at night if he noticed several black males walking behind him.
- NPR’s claimed reason for the firing (the controversial statement) was a pre-text. As Fox News has reported, there is a long record at NPR for its analysts to say controversial things, but only if they are attacking conservative positions:
- Cokie Roberts called Glenn Beck worse than a clown and more like a terrorist.
- Nina Totenberg wished for Jesse Helms’ grandkids to get AIDS and has suggested that the Citizen decision from the U.S. Supreme Court could lead to another Watergate.
- Daniel Schorr wrote that the Bush v. Gore decision was a coup and junta by a “gang of five.”
NPR receives about $3 million a year from the federal government, which is only 2% of its budget, but its network of subscriber stations receives a significantly larger portion of their budgets from the federal government. All of this funding is jeopardized if NPR reveals itself to be left-leaning, and the firing of Juan Williams certainly puts gas on that fire.
