National Public Radio ("NPR") in the US is similar to national radio stations in New Zealand. Both are funded by the taxpayer's money. Both are media organs that reflect their masters and have a consistent left-wing bias.
Juan Williams has worked as a commentator on NPR for over a decade. His sympathies lie with the prevailing bias operating in NPR, but he strives for objectivity and fairness. Every so often he gets splenetic about things a more objective look would eschew. But due to his gravitas and objectivity he has had a standing spot on Fox News as a commentator on various panels and cable news shows.
He recently was on a show hosted by Bill O'Reilly, and said some things that resulted in NPR firing him. Here is his account, which, given his professionalism, is believable.
Wednesday afternoon I got a message on my cell phone from Ellen Weiss who’s the head of news at NPR asking me to call. When I called back she said, “What did you say? What did you mean to say?” And I said, “I said what I meant to say.” Which is that it’s an honest experience that when I’m in an airport and I see people who are in Muslim garb, who identify themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I do a double take. I have a moment of anxiety or fear given what happened on 9/11. That’s just the reality. And she went on to say, “Well, that crosses the line.” And I said, “What line is that?” And she went on to somehow suggest that I had made a bigoted statement. And I said, “It’s not a bigoted statement.” I, in fact, in the course of this conversation with Bill O’Reilly, said that we have, as Americans, an obligation to be careful to protect the constitutional rights of everyone in the country and to make sure we don’t have any outbreak of bigotry. But that there’s a reality. You cannot 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 been recently said in court with regard to this as the first drop of blood in a Muslim war in America. And then she said, “You know, this has been decided up the chain.” I said, “You mean, I don’t even get the chance to come in and we do this eyeball-to-eyeball, person-to-person, have a conversation? I’ve been there for more than ten years. We don’t have that 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.”
Enough said. The question is what possible principled rationale could there be for taxpayers to fund a news media infected with such ideological cant. Come to think of it, what possible rationale could there be for the government to own, fund, and operate any media whatsoever? The one possible exception may be in a state of war when a government owned and operated media organ might be used for propaganda purposes to undermine enemies of the state.
Maybe that is the point. Maybe that is why governments continue to fund National Radio in New Zealand and NRP in the States. Maybe they reason that there are internal enemies of the state and they are anyone and anything with a political orientation not their own. And any political stance which seeks to shrink the power and size of government is regarded as an internal enemy.
From the perspective of fearing the emerging Leviathan, state funded media are a very, very bad idea. The Williams debacle is but a harbinger of the foetid rot within the body politic, and the public health danger it represents.
In the meantime, weep not for Juan Williams. No doubt he will be viewed as a martyr, and most media organisations will want to have a chat. His professionalism and his credibility and his reputation will have only grown through this incident.
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