This is being posted after 64 responses to my original post. Certainly a lot of lively discussion.
I think that Car Talk has considerable leverage if they considered taking a stand on the Juan Williams issue. My understanding is that Car Talk is the most expensive NPR program that local stations can subscribe to, so there is a lot of $'s at risk if they were to “jump ship”. I understand and respect their decision if they elect to stay on the sidelines, but if they were to take a stand, it could have a lot of impact on how NPR reacts.
I find something very interesting here. Some of my responses (which were not in any way in violation of the rules of this forum) have been “moved to the moderation queue.” That means that someone flagged them for moderation. Since they were non-offensive and simply stating various viewpoints such as “journalists aren’t supposed to express opinions,” one must conclude that they were flagged by the anti-NPR crowd. The same crowd that’s been running around this thread howling about freedom of speech. Interesting how they can make freedom of speech apply to a business (NPR) when it doesn’t, but they’re easily swayed into believing that it doesn’t apply to comments posted here.
It doesn’t, of course, but if they’re tacitly admitting as much by flagging my posts, it seems the only conclusion is that they know it doesn’t apply in the Williams case, and are using it anyway in an attempt to muddy the waters.
In other words, they’re lying.
All I know is, other than music, Car Talk is the only show on NPR that I listen to regularly (I do sometimes listen to the quiz shows (‘wait, wait’ and ‘says who’) that come on after it, but only because I tuned in to Car Talk). If they were on commercial radio, a lot more people would hear this fine show. I would never think that ol’ Click and Clack would be corrupted by sponsors.
“If you don’t want to have to follow ethical restrictions, don’t be a journalist.”
Very amusing. I suppose you would say the same thng about being an attorney?
Baward1, why do you think C&C would disagree with NPR? Nothing I’ve heard on the program would make me think they would disagree with NPR.
I have to say I think that conspiracy theory fails, Sure posts seem to go away, who knows why, but to think the anti NPR crowd could have such an influence would be ludicrous.
The problem is that NPR didn’t fire him because he said something controversial. They fired him because he violated the terms of his contract.
I was on a church retreat with a local black church of the same denomination.
Our church has a sister church that is African-American. We get together a couple of times a year, including an Easter sunrise service. We combine our choirs for this service. Our sister church has a baritone with a wonderful voice. Our choir director tried to trade me to them for their great baritone and a first round draft choice of singers in any new members. I didn’t get traded–the other church choir didn’t want me either.
What is really great is when our sister African American church hosts the Easter sunrise srvice. The breakfast they serve after the service makes it worth it to get up at 6:00 a.m. in the morning.
Yes, but when posts are just deleted the system doesn’t generate an email that tells you it’s been moved to the moderation queue. When you get that email, you know someone has flagged it as abusive.
I may not have been clear; I simply said that I would understand if they elected to stay with NPR. I didn’t say if I expected them to stay or go; just that if they stayed I would understand. Their decision is theirs, and theirs alone. They may not want to get involved and take a stand one way or the other.
Now, since you asked, my gut feel is that they’ll stay with NPR and not say one thing about the incident. I guess you could send Doug Berman an e-mail and see what he wants to do.
Just off the wire:NPR expresses regret that they did not prepeare their clients (like CT) better to deal with the fallout over the firing of Jaun Williams, no regret for the actual firing. It was rpeated that Jaun was fired for expressing his opinion on certain subjects,something he had been warned to stop doing.
Did they give a time frame of when they will fire the rest of their so-called journalists who have expressed their opinions(for years) on other networks?
That’s right they didn’t, because those journalists voiced opinions that NPR supported.
NPR = liberal hypocrisy at it’s finest.
Where would you have them go? With NPR being non-commercial Click and Clack are not beholden to any advertisers so we can usually depend on an honest opinion from them.
As far as Juan Williams goes, I believe he had the right to say what he did. I also believe that NPR has the right to terminate it’s use of Mr. Williams services at any time they see fit.
Simple answer… No, they do not need to change networks unless they themselves feel the need.
More of an answer… NPR is extremely biased toward the liberal point of view. FOX News is biased to conservative. Proponents of both would have many example of items far more incendiary than Juan Williams. I am in favor of the US Government getting out of the financial support business of free speech. I support congress defunding NPR and let it stand on it’s own. FOX News does and leads the news markets at all hours of the day.
All pretense of objectivity on NPR goes out the window in an election season. I’ve turned NPR off and I won’t turn it back on until the election is over. Most of the interesting NPR programming is available as podcasts (also Car Talk). You can even contribute to some of them directly. I know that “This American Life” accepts $10 contributions by text message.
Honestly, NPR is constantly reminding us that the public funding is a small portion of their budget (2-8 percent depending on who’s doing the talking). They should just stop taking that money and ask their listeners to pick up the slack. Then, they won’t have to worry about accountability to the public at large or their elected representatives.
No Way! Car Talk and NPR are made for each other. OK, maybe the whole thing was handled badly, but beat up on the CEO - not the whole NPR experience.
If found out a long time ago that my employer can fire me for doing the exact same thing they did not fire another employee. Perhaps they did not like my responses when thet talked to me about the incident but did like what the other employee had to say.
Where is it written “Jonny got away with it, so I can also”
I am tired of the "If it was a conservative that said that he would be out the door’ Just like you conservatives are tired of me blaming junior Bush for inflicting so much hurt upon everybody on the planet. The damage he has done by these wars will be felt for a hundred years.“Fighting for my freedom”, just like a phrase we used to say about virginity.
Never have I seen the country so divided. Getting unemployment does not mean you are a slacker.
So in your opinion NPR can hold Juan to the letter of his contract but they don’t have to hold any one else to theirs.
There are numerous examples of NPR journalists expressing OPINIONS on other news networks. NPR can’t just pick and choose whose contract they want to enforce. That’s the problem a majority of this country has with what happened.
I’m a Conserative Republican and I didn’t always agree with what Juan Williams had to say but he was a reasonable voice from the other side in a time when there is too much name calling between parties. I respected what he had to say because he did it without the name calling.
There are several aspects about what Jaun says in the course of his jobs. As a journalist he should not be expressing opinions, there is another name for that and it is not journalisim. As a journalist for NPR that has been warned not to express his opinion on sensitive subjects,he is that, a journalist that has been warned. Now as a citizen he really did not say what needed to be said because he had O’Rielly’s sock in his mouth.
He allowed himself to be used by O’Rielly and Fox to the extent that they could say, “look over here we have a liberal on the show” But if Jaun really challenged "ORielly’s points like he could and should he would not have been on the show.
Jaun bears the responsibility for his situation by not staying a journalist when he should of, and by not being a correct thinking citizen when that should have been the case. Jaun letting O’Rielly and Fox dampen his true feelings on a subject he is an expert on is just as bad as Jaun not knowing when he should dampen his own statements when he wants to maintain his impartial journalistic identity. Kinda tough too keep both jobs, O’Rielly needs called out and Jaun was not doing it. I still wonder when Jaun files his “wrongful termination” suit.
No, I have my own problems.