NPR fires Juan Williams for saying he feels Nervous?

[liveonearth]

Here you can see the offending clip in which Williams admitted that he feels nervous when he sees people in Muslim garb on an airplane. I hadn't seen it until just now. Williams has a long history of working for human rights, and he is black. After he made this admission, NPR fired him, and he promptly got hired by FOX to the tune of a $2 million contract.

What happened here is in a way a repeat of something I observed in church a few Sundays ago. The pastor said that homophobia is a sin. Fear is a sin? Now NPR is saying the same thing. Nervousness around strangers in clothing representing so much = sin. This is ridiculous. This is a trap that liberals have fallen into. This is the disaster of PCism taken so far that people cannot even express their unbidden and unacted emotions. It's not even an opinion, it's an EMOTION. The opinion, being something concocted of reason in a quality man such as Williams, will not be bigoted. But emotions? I suspect that any reasonable person in Arab dress would understand that Williams is not a hater, he is simply human. We would all get along better if we allow each other to be human.

Comments

[lgsunshine.livejournal.com]

For me the real piece of the controversy is that Williams is a reporter not a commentator. O'Reilly and other Fox shows have blurred the line on news, entertainment and commentary. As a news reporter, Williams is held to a different standard than O'Reilly. It's troubling to me that the journalistic code of conduct is completely absent from the controversy. In my mind, it's staged drama to divert us from the idea that there is little journalism available to us. He gets fired from NPR and hired by Fox - why should I care?

[lgsunshine.livejournal.com]

It is actually part of the journalist code to not give commentary. In my journalism class in college, I really struggled with this. It seems false. The second you begin to edit something you give it a point of view. Journalists are to work to be as neutral as possible. They need to be seen as credible - and reporters of facts. It's why there's such a distinction between - the editorial page and the news page. But tv has really blurred this distinction. If he wants to work as a commentator - then really, he should retire or switch professions. It seems as if NPR has forced his hand. I'm most curious what Democracy Now will do. If they will keep him on.