NPR fires Juan Williams for Muslim remarks

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NPR Fires Juan Williams; Fox News Expands His Role

Published October 21, 2010 | FoxNews.com

FOX News has re-signed Juan Williams to an expanded role with the network in a multi-year deal, Roger Ailes, chairman and chief executive officer of FOX News, announced Thursday after National Public Radio fired Williams for his comments on the O'Reilly Factor Monday night, when he said it makes him nervous to fly on airplanes with devout Muslims.

Williams will host The O’Reilly Factor on Friday night and will appear with O’Reilly on the show Thursday night.

In making the announcement, Ailes said, “Juan has been a staunch defender of liberal viewpoints since his tenure began at FOX News in 1997. He’s an honest man whose freedom of speech is protected by FOX News on a daily basis.”

NPR terminated Williams in the wake of a discussion he had with O'Reilly concerning the dilemma between fighting jihadists and fears about average Muslims.

"I mean, look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country," Williams said.

"But when I get on a plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

Williams also commented on remarks by Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad warning Americans that the fight is coming to the U.S.

"He said the war with Muslims, America's war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don't think there's any way to get away from these facts," Williams said.

NPR issued a statement Wednesday night saying that it was "terminating" Williams' contract over the remarks.

"Tonight we gave Juan Williams notice that we are terminating his contract as a senior news analyst for NPR News," CEO Vivian Schiller and Senior Vice President for News Ellen Weiss said in a statement.

"Juan has been a valuable contributor to NPR and public radio for many years and we did not make this decision lightly or without regret. However, his remarks on 'The O'Reilly Factor' this past Monday were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR," they said. "We regret these circumstances and thank Juan Williams for his many years of service to NPR and public radio."

Williams said Thursday he wasn't given the chance to have a face-to-face conversation with his superiors at NPR before he was let go.

Recalling a conversation with NPR's head of news, Williams said he was told, "This has been decided up the chain."

"I said, 'I don't even get the chance to come in and we do this eyeball to eyeball, person to person and have a conversation. I've been there more than 10 years. We don't have a chance to have a conversation about this.' And she said, 'There's nothing you can say that will change my mind. This has been decided above me and we're terminating your contract,'" Williams recounted to Fox News.

Williams said that he meant exactly what he said about his fears during his appearance on O'Reilly's show.

"I do a double take. I have a moment of anxiety of fear given what happened on 9/11. That's just a reality," he said, noting that when he told his former boss, she suggested that Williams had made a bigoted statement.

"It's not a bigoted statement. In fact, in the course of this conversation with Bill O'Reilly, I said we have an obligation as Americans to be careful to protect the constitutional rights of everyone in our country and to make sure that we don't have any outbreak of bigotry. but that there's a reality. You can not ignore what happened on 9/11 and you cannot ignore the connection to Islamic radicalism, and you can't ignore the fact of what has even recently been said in court with regard to this is the first drop of blood in a Muslim war in America."

Watch Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" at 8 pm ET Thursday night for an interview with Juan Williams.

The conversation on O'Reilly's show stemmed from a well-publicized argument the previous week between O'Reilly and "The View" hosts Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg, who walked off their own set when O'Reilly said, "Muslims killed us on 9/11."

The comment had been an explanation by O'Reilly why the majority of Americans don't want a mosque housed in an Islamic cultural center built near Ground Zero.

The women, who argued that Oklahoma City bomber Tim McVeigh wasn't a Muslim, returned after O'Reilly said that he was -- perhaps inartfully -- talking about Muslim extremists.

The conversation has been fodder for both shows. Goldberg appeared Wednesday night on "On the Record With Greta Van Susteren," and said when she cursed at O'Reilly on air -- a word that was bleeped for broadcast -- she knew she was beyond reason and had to leave.

"He wasn't thoughtful and he knew he wasn't thoughtful and once he said, 'if I offended someone I apologize' ... it showed me that he recognized it," she said.

"But he knew that for us it was not ok. ... He got what he wanted and I don't feel bad about doing it. Should I have sat and just bit my tongue? I don't think I could because it was too much like all the things I heard about black folks and women," Goldberg said, adding that she has no hard feelings and planned to appear on O'Reilly's show in a few weeks..

Williams, a liberal African American commentator who has written extensively on civil rights in America, previously got in trouble with NPR for comments he made while appearing on "The O'Reilly Factor" in February 2009. At that time, he described first lady Michelle Obama as having a "Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress thing going."

Carmichael was a black activist in the 1960s who coined the phrase "Black Power."

After the Carmichael quote, Williams' position at NPR was changed from staff correspondent to national analyst.

Watch Fox News' "The O'Reilly Factor" at 8 pm ET Thursday night for an interview with Juan Williams.

FoxNews.com - NPR Fires Juan Williams; Fox News Expands His Role
 
If FoxNews calls him a Liberal, he could very easily be MOR like me. I think the fact they hired him is another publicity stunt. Oh well. I take all media with a grain of salt. Good thing you seem to have a source that you believe.
 
saywhatkid said:
If FoxNews calls him a Liberal, he could very easily be MOR like me. I think the fact they hired him is another publicity stunt. Oh well. I take all media with a grain of salt. Good thing you seem to have a source that you believe.
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Check other sources, I don't mind. Check NPR.
 
Juan is entitled to his opinion, which, he gave. But, discussing the topic is a bit like picking up a cobra. Not wise, because, it's going to bite you.

Ever since 911, people have reacted out of fear, and, probably rightly so. However, I don't think it's fair to characterize all Muslims as bad. Clearly there are peaceful people who practice Islam. Unfortunately, however, it's the extremist that get all the attention in the media and stories like this get dug up for us to chew over and regurgitate back into these endless debates.

I think Juan chose the wrong time to share his views and that's what bit him. Then again, after 911, there may never be a "right time" to express the opinions he did.
 
While I totally agree with you that "all Muslims" did not attack wtc on 9/11, it still must be pointed out the the attacker were Muslims exteremist. What gets lost in all this, and what really upsets me to no end, is the "peaceful" Muslims you speak of keep their mouths shut about the extremist. I live by the principal of: "If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem."
I myself am WASP, however if the KKK, the Catholic Church, etc. does anything harmful and just terrible wrong, you could not keep my mouth shut unless you killed me.
Therefore, until these so-called "peaceful" Muslims speak up, and loud enough to get world-wide media attention, to villify their own members they are part of the problem they are bringing on themselves.
 
Huh? I see Muslims criticizing and excommunicating the 9/11 suicide runners. They're even vocal about the Taliban and Iran. What rock have you been under?
 
rolling7 said:
While I totally agree with you that "all Muslims" did not attack wtc on 9/11, it still must be pointed out the the attacker were Muslims exteremist. What gets lost in all this, and what really upsets me to no end, is the "peaceful" Muslims you speak of keep their mouths shut about the extremist. I live by the principal of: "If you are not part of the solution, then you are part of the problem."
I myself am WASP, however if the KKK, the Catholic Church, etc. does anything harmful and just terrible wrong, you could not keep my mouth shut unless you killed me.
Therefore, until these so-called "peaceful" Muslims speak up, and loud enough to get world-wide media attention, to villify their own members they are part of the problem they are bringing on themselves.
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Eh? Why should Muslims speak up about 911? They had nothing to do with it. It was an inside job. There, I spoke up.
 
souggy said:
Huh? I see Muslims criticizing and excommunicating the 9/11 suicide runners. They're even vocal about the Taliban and Iran. What rock have you been under?
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I see the same thing. And I would also point out that "devout" and "extremist" are not the same thing.:cool2:
 
Beowulf said:
Eh? Why should Muslims speak up about 911? They had nothing to do with it. It was an inside job. There, I spoke up.
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If that were true, why do the Muslim extremist groups proudly take credit for the attacks, and attempt to produce more attacks?

If that were true, wouldn't the mainstream Muslims be protesting their innocence of a false accusation?
 
Reba said:
If that were true, why do the Muslim extremist groups proudly take credit for the attacks, and attempt to produce more attacks?

If that were true, wouldn't the mainstream Muslims be protesting their innocence of a false accusation?
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Such is the power of the media in determining what goes reported/unreported.
 
Reba said:
If that were true, why do the Muslim extremist groups proudly take credit for the attacks, and attempt to produce more attacks?

If that were true, wouldn't the mainstream Muslims be protesting their innocence of a false accusation?
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There aren't Muslim extremists that had ties to the U.S. political system at the time?

Mainstream Muslims are not a part of the extremist faction.
 
Williams didn't say that all Muslims are potential terrorists. He said that if he was on a plane with obvious Muslims he would be nervous. That's a specific scenario, one that could be a repeat of a 9/11 flight.

On the flights where attacks were thwarted, such as the Christmas day underwear bomber, the passengers' suspicions were correct.
 
jillio said:
There aren't Muslim extremists that had ties to the U.S. political system at the time?
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Please explain what you mean.

Mainstream Muslims are not a part of the extremist faction.
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That's exactly my point. If it wasn't Muslims who attacked on 9/11, why aren't the mainstream, non-extremist Muslims shouting that out? None of them are saying that it wasn't Muslims taking over and crashing those planes. If they really believed it wasn't Muslims, and they had some proof, don't you think they would be broadcasting that so as to remove all blame from all Muslims?

OK, I'll answer my own question.

It was extremist Muslims who carried out the 9/11 attack; it was NOT an "inside job." That's the reason mainstream Muslims can't deny it.
 
Reba said:
Williams didn't say that all Muslims are potential terrorists. He said that if he was on a plane with obvious Muslims he would be nervous. That's a specific scenario, one that could be a repeat of a 9/11 flight.

On the flights where attacks were thwarted, such as the Christmas day underwear bomber, the passengers' suspicions were correct.
Click to expand...

Sighhhh....Let's not get into an us vs. them mentality here. All hail the power of the media!!!
 
souggy said:
Huh? I see Muslims criticizing and excommunicating the 9/11 suicide runners. They're even vocal about the Taliban and Iran. What rock have you been under?
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I know this question is off-topic but how do Muslims excommunicate other Muslims? What is the procedure?
 
Reba said:
Please explain what you mean.


That's exactly my point. If it wasn't Muslims who attacked on 9/11, why aren't the mainstream, non-extremist Muslims shouting that out? None of them are saying that it wasn't Muslims taking over and crashing those planes. If they really believed it wasn't Muslims, and they had some proof, don't you think they would be broadcasting that so as to remove all blame from all Muslims?

OK, I'll answer my own question.

It was extremist Muslims who carried out the 9/11 attack; it was NOT an "inside job." That's the reason mainstream Muslims can't deny it.
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Sure it was. Research it.
 
Beowulf said:
Sighhhh....Let's not get into an us vs. them mentality here. All hail the power of the media!!!
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Are you saying that all the attacks and attempted attacks were fabricated by Americans?
 
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