NPR Fires Juan Williams For What?

Rory Cooper / October 21, 2010

This morning, the media world was shocked to learn that Juan Williams was fired from National Public Radio (NPR) as a result of opinions he expressed last night on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor. Williams has been a long-time contributor to Fox News, where he offers unabashed center-left commentary.

The controversy is hard to figure out. During the segment in question, Williams defended Muslims from being painted with broad strokes, even though he had also felt the personal twangs of fear when on an airline with a religiously-garbed Muslim post-9/11. Many Americans may identify with this honest introspective position. Juan Williams, author of numerous civil rights books, was preaching tolerance in the face of his own self-doubts.

This whitewashing of news is typical of liberal media professionals who fear that the mere reporting of facts or a debate of views may incite some sort of American violence against a particular group. Of course, this ignores that such movements rarely exist. If anything, America was a model of tolerance following 9/11 as the nation stood together denouncing stereotypes even as they shared Juan Williams’ personal twangs of fear while boarding airlines. (more…)