# Should longtime NPR analyst Juan Williams have been fired for comments he made on O'Reilly? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 21, 2010, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887 "2010-10-21T14:51:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/1 "2010-10-21T14:51:08Z")
Longtime NPR news analyst Juan Williams was terminated from NPR stemming from a comment he made on The O’Reilly Factor on Fox on Monday night. > [@Juan Williams on the O'Reilly Factor](#): > > 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. NPR issued a statement last night that they were severing his contract. > [@NPR in statement firing Juan Williams](#): > > 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. [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130712737&ps=cprs](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130712737&ps=cprs) So was NPR warranted in firing him over his comments? Or are they being too politically correct? ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/2 "2010-10-21T14:56:46Z")
I’d say he was being honest. Whether or not being honest is enough to get someone fired is a different question. I personally think NPR went off the deep end in firing the guy. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/3 "2010-10-21T15:04:16Z")
Did NPR give some examples of Williams behavior that violated their standards? Or was it just thoughtcrime? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/4 "2010-10-21T15:07:11Z")
Well, he certainly shouldn’t have been fired for thoughtcrime. Now, if he discussed his bigotry on a national broadcast, _then_ maybe he should have been fired; but of course, he didn’t do that. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/5 "2010-10-21T15:08:08Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Did NPR give some examples of Williams behavior that violated their standards? They said his comments violated their standards. That seems to be all the behavior they need. A little bit like CNN dumping Rick Sanchez after his comments about Jews, this sounds like it had been coming for a while: > [@](#): > > Williams’ presence on the largely conservative and often contentious prime-time talk shows of Fox News has long been a sore point with NPR News executives. > > His status was earlier shifted from staff correspondent to analyst after he took clear-cut positions about public policy on television and in newspaper opinion pieces. Whether he deserved to be fired or not, I think the statement that his comments “undermined his credibility as a news analyst” is not unfair. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/6 "2010-10-21T15:11:16Z")
Juan Williams has a right to express whatever bigotry he wants, but NPR doesn’t have to pay him for it. That kind of statement hurts his credibility as a commentator and alienates the audience. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Smashy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mr\_Smashy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Smashy)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/7 "2010-10-21T15:18:57Z")
They may have had the right to do it, but it’s so over the top for NPR to fire someone who was telling the truth… and frankly, a truth probably shared by a majority of Americans. Of course NPR is notoriously ultra-liberal, so it’s not surprising that they took the political correctness to an extreme. It will be a good day in this country when we finally de-fund them completely. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/8 "2010-10-21T15:23:19Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > They may have had the right to do it, but it’s so over the top for NPR to fire someone who was telling the truth… and frankly, a truth probably shared by a majority of Americans. It’s only the truth insofar as he believes what he says. I think you’re interpreting his comments as “Americans should be nervous when they see people in Muslim clothing on planes” because that’s what you believe. He didn’t say that. He said _he_ gets nervous when he’s in that situation. The part that bothers me isn’t the ‘I get nervous around Muslims on planes’ - I can understand having that impulse, and certainly the first time I flew after September 11th (which was nine days after the attacks), I would have been nervous in that situation. The part that bothers me is “they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims,” which is to say ‘if you wear that kind of clothing, you are saying you’re more of a Muslim than an American.’ That’s more of that dual loyalty bullshit, and it’s pretty stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/9 "2010-10-21T15:25:04Z")
It seems that it _was_ thoughtcrime, then. Williams even included the standard (and quite sensible) disclaimer that one can’t blame all Muslims for terrorism. I mention behavior because of a point that sometimes gets raised in discussions of liberal bias in the MSM. Sometimes, after it is pointed out that the overwhelming majority of prominent journalists and editors are Democrat and liberal, the counter is that this doesn’t matter unless you can point to examples of how this bias affects their coverage. (Not that such examples are hard to come by, but…) But it appears that NPR doesn’t buy that as an excuse. They have no examples of how Williams’ attitude affected his coverage, or his decisions as a journalist, or anything like that. He just expressed an attitude, and they fired him. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/10 "2010-10-21T15:25:29Z")
NPR is non-partisan, for the record. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/11 "2010-10-21T15:26:40Z")
The attitude he expressed was bigoted and destroyed his journalistic credibility (not that he’s had much left for the past several years since he became a shoeshine boy for Fox News). ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/12 "2010-10-21T15:26:55Z")
> [@Mr\_Smashy](#): > > They may have had the right to do it, but it’s so over the top for NPR to fire someone who was telling the truth… and frankly, a truth probably shared by a majority of Americans. > > Of course NPR is notoriously ultra-liberal, so it’s not surprising that they took the political correctness to an extreme. It will be a good day in this country when we finally de-fund them completely. Yeah, then right-wing stupidity can truly flourish unchecked. Look, if you’re a news org, you can’t have members saying, “By the way, I really think the Dutch stink and you know they really want to stick their herrings in our wimmens.” Being openly racist on TV undercuts the impartiality a newsman is supposed to have. NPR did a good thing here. If Brian Williams appeared on national TV saying that Blacks really seem lazy to him, it would be totally understandable to can him. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/13 "2010-10-21T15:28:39Z")
Perhaps NPR just feels it shouldn’t be employing journalists who are that stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/14 "2010-10-21T15:31:52Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > The attitude he expressed was bigoted and destroyed his journalistic credibility (not that he’s had much left for the past several years since he became a shoeshine boy for Fox News). Interesting use of the term “boy” there. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/15 "2010-10-21T15:33:22Z")
> [@diogenes the cynic](#): > > npr is non-partisan, for the record. :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/16 "2010-10-21T15:35:23Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Interesting use of the term “boy” there. > > Regards, > Shodan Well he is “the Black Guy” for FOX News. Like how they had Colmes as “the Liberal Guy”. His job was to be black on screen. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/17 "2010-10-21T15:35:33Z")
> [@Wilbo523](#): > > :eek: It might be nice if we didn’t let him derail the thread with his usual act. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/18 "2010-10-21T15:37:19Z")
> [@Wilbo523](#): > > :eek: It seems hyper-partisan to conservatives because conservatives are used to only seeing disinformation that backs up their pre-conceived notions. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Smashy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mr\_Smashy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Smashy)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/19 "2010-10-21T15:38:45Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > It’s only the truth insofar as he believes what he says. I think you’re interpreting his comments as “Americans should be nervous when they see people in Muslim clothing on planes” because that’s what you believe. He didn’t say that. He said _he_ gets nervous when he’s in that situation. The part that bothers me isn’t the ‘I get nervous around Muslims on planes’ - I can understand having that impulse, and certainly the first time I flew after September 11th (which was nine days after the attacks), I would have been nervous in that situation. The part that bothers me is “they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims,” which is to say ‘if you wear that kind of clothing, you are saying you’re more of a Muslim than an American.’ That’s more of that dual loyalty bullshit, and it’s pretty stupid. Oh please. A distinction without a difference, and you know it. He’s nervous because people who dress like Muslims are probably muslim. And muslims are the ones who blew up the planes. I believe it’s the truth because he wouldn’t have said it otherwise (indeed, his politics suggest he’d go the other way) - I’m making no determination on how reasonable of a thought it is, but I believe that most Americans would feel similarly. ---
**Author:** ![Mr\_Smashy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Mr\_Smashy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Smashy)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2010, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887/20 "2010-10-21T15:39:57Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > NPR is non-partisan, for the record. Sure they are :rolleyes: (Just as an aside, I’m sure it’s completely coincidental… weren’t they the guys sharing the Democatic National Committee fundraising list for their begathon?) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-longtime-npr-analyst-juan-williams-have-been-fired-for-comments-he-made-on-oreilly/557887.md?page=2)