Last Thursday, NPR announced that it would terminate its contract with Juan Williams, a long-time correspondent and news analyst, in response to comments he made as a guest on Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor. On Friday, the internet exploded with opinions, outrage, and explanations, from all angles. Williams immediately lashed out at his former employer from the podium of his new employer, Fox News, while amateur pundits across the political spectrum questioned the reason, timing and manner of the dismissal.
In the full context of his comments, and the scope of his career, what Williams said was not as offensive as many other recent examples of journalists speaking their mind. Dr. Laura's infamous insistence that an African-American woman get a better sense of humor about her white husband's friends using racial slurs to refer to their mixed-race child, for example, is abominable, no matter who says it, or in what context. The comments which got Rick Sanchez offed at CNN, while almost as offensive, were less bigoted – unlike Dr. Laura, in listening back to his comments Sanchez realized he had stepped over a line – and more the result of personal frustration and off-color humor.
The case of Juan Williams pushes this distinction between bigotry, accident, and unprofessionalism to an even finer point. What Williams said was not hate speech, nor was it intended to cast all members of a particular group – in this case Muslims who choose to wear ‘traditional’ garb, whatever that means – in a negative or extremist light. Williams was quite clear that seeing all Muslims dressed in this fashion as a threat was not the appropriate or rational reaction, just as seeing a Presbyterian from upstate
American Islamic groups responded vehemently that this was inappropriate, equating all Muslims, or at least all ‘traditionally dressed’ Muslims with terrorism. Others quickly pointed out the ridiculousness of the comments given that every major act of airline terrorism has been carried out by individuals – Muslim or otherwise – wearing ‘normal’/ contemporary clothes. Even in the most paranoid Fox-fueled mindset, historically and statistically speaking, Muslims in ‘traditional garb’ are 100% safer than 20-40 year old unmarried men wearing blue jeans.
What Juan Williams revealed in his comments is not racial hatred, but rather the cumulative effects of misinformation and paranoid fear. When virtually every TV villain is now of Middle Eastern decent, and citizens from Omaha to El Paso are told they are under existential threat from those who ‘aren’t like them,’ is it any surprise to see xenophobia manifest in this manner? Williams, who is an intelligent, articulate, and very observant professional, has fallen into this trap even as he recognizes, on some level, that it is incorrect.
Or so it seemed. Williams, who has spent much of his career covering civil rights issues, wrote an acclaimed book 1986 book, Eyes on the Prize, in which he says, "Racism is a lazy man's substitute for using good judgement... Common sense becomes racism when skin color becomes a formula for figuring out who is a danger to me." (credit to Dave Zirin of The Nation who expands on this point as an ironic justification for Williams' firing) Substituting 'choice of attire' for 'skin color' is an easy way for Juan Williams of 1986 to call Juan Williams of 2010 a racist.
Unfortunately, Juan Williams 2010 no longer sees it this way. In the immediate aftermath of the NPR firing, Williams was reserved - a quality he has long been admired for in his time at the Washington Post. He initially declined to comment on the story, citing his need to think about it more and confer with his wife.
That self-imposed deliberation lasted until the next morning, when Fox News offered him a $2 million contract and a multimedia platform from which to present "his side" of the story. With the loud support of every Fox pundit, Williams unleashed a torrent of criticism on NPR, ranging from accusations of political bias and elitism to outright racism - Williams is African-American - to calls for depriving NPR of any federal funding. The last threat, quickly taken up by Sarah Palin and Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC), most clearly shows how far Williams has propelled himself into the partisan playbook at Fox. NPR receives only 2% of its national funding from federal sources, and that is from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which normally supplies 3-5% of operating budgets for non-commercial radio entities. Williams knows this - that NPR gets very little money from the government - but he intentionally used his platform as a means to perpetuate the Conservative - or more accurately, the anti-NPR - myth that it is a part of the left-wing 'Big Government' apparatus. (read his letter yourself. It stings like a high school breakup note).
Williams went, in 1 day, from being a reasonable and respected journalist working hard to maintain his objectivity and occasionally over-stepping that line, to becoming an active advocate for Conservative political policy willing to play on audience biases even when he knows they are based on inaccurate assumptions. The switch in trajectory makes Icarus look like a gradualist.
The move by NPR to immediately sever ties with Williams has drawn not only as much, but far more, attention than William’s original comments. Critics from the right and left, especially those smelling blood in the water after NPR was uncomfortably in the news over confusions regarding how its objectivity policy would apply to the Stewart/Colbert rally scheduled for October 30, has lept on the occasion. They have leveled accusations of muzzling free speech – the same claim Dr. Laura used for her right to be horribly insensitive on mass media – and alternately blamed NPR for reacting against Williams because of his self-professed conservative (actually, probably moderate) political stance.
What is lost in all this – in fact, intentionally buried – is the NPR did not cut its ties with Williams because what he said was blatantly offensive, because of his personal ‘conservative’ leanings, or because he made those honest comments on Fox News, which fashions itself the political antithesis of NPR.
Williams was fired because he violated NPRs standards and ethics of journalistic objectivity. The fact that he did so in a manner that many Muslim Americans found offensive, or that he made those comments on Fox, rather than another media outlet, add spice to the story, but are entirely bankrupt of substance (though sadly, not coverage).
Those defending NPR have pointed out that if Williams comments had been about a different group identifiable by its clothing – the Amish, Pentecostals, 60s Black civil rights activists, or military personnel – he would have been lambasted. Only because his comments rang true with other Americans harboring irrational fears was it considered a “controversial” decision to remove him.
But this is the wrong point to take away. Juan Williams was not fired by NPR for being “offensive” on Fox. He was fired for allowing his personal biases and opinions to jeopardize his ability to provide objective news coverage.
This is a rather minor point for those who do not make their lives in journalism – as I myself do not – and we often wonder how anyone can be expected not to have personal opinions. After several conversations with veteran journalist friends – every single one of whom have backed up both the recent NPR objectivity moves – I’m starting to wrap my head around the argument.
In most ways, journalists are just like everyone else. In fact, it is the very humanity – the humor, the weaknesses, etc. – and NPR’s ability to convey that through news and features which makes the unorthodox news outlet - on "old fashioned" radio - by far the most complete, honest, and informative news source today. I place it above CNN, Fox, and the New York Times – not in every category individually, but as a holistic source of accurate, fair, interesting, and objective reporting.
And this bring us to the Fox comparison. Fox News sees itself, clearly, as the ‘Conservative News Source,’ providing what we might think of as “All the News That’s Fit to Our Preconceived World-view.” In the Fox News system, there can be only two types of news: Liberal news, and Fox News. Preying on the age-old myth of an all-liberal media (let’s face it, CNN – as a median option - is barely moderate these days, while MSNBC is trying to be genuinely liberal with minimal success), Fox is lauded by its fans – including some of my close relatives – for providing the “other side” of the news that they can’t get elsewhere.
But this argument only works if you first accept Fox’s assumption of an unavoidably partisan press. NPR represents one of the few remaining examples of the “old-school” journalism that emerged in the 1940s – 50s and continued up to the late 1990s. It is the journalism of Murrow, Kronkite, Koppell, etc. that demands hard work, humility, and an almost sacred obsession with clearly communicating news to one’s audience devoid of personal bias. Fox initially practiced this same method in its first years, but trailed badly among cable news ratings. Seeking a more popular approach, the network seized on the opportunities of 2003 to test out a new formula. Now, Fox would intentionally focus on the parts of the news that it believed its core audience – conservative Americans – would most want to hear. News items that would upset that audience were marginalized, or even ignored, and the results – while ethically deficient by the earlier standards of journalism – were very, very profitable.
Since January 2009, Fox has kicked this slide into an all-out avalanche, dramatically increasing the slant within its ‘news’ shows, and advancing ‘editorial’ shows that go even further throughout its programming blocks. The parallels to talk radio, which is overwhelmingly dominated by conservative voices without any attempt at objectivity, are incredible, even as more and more conservative talk show hosts are given Fox ‘analyst’ and ‘pundit’ jobs.
The issue is that Fox does represent an ideological opposite to NPR, but it is not because of partisan affinity. Instead, it is a question of journalistic ethics. NPR believes that news organizations should have no partisan agena, while Fox clearly feels the opposite.
The name-calling is informative, and goes (approximately) like this:
Fox: “NPR is elitist Liberal Media” (the insult here is that they are Liberal).
NPR: “Fox News is a political activist” (the insult is that they are partisan, regardless of which party).
According to the standards by which NPR operates, Fox News is a toxic environment for objective journalists. Nonetheless, it is a major media outlet, and NPR has sanctioned several of its correspondents to appear on Fox so long as they do so only as objective journalists - not opinion makers. It is recognized that doing so is not easy, and that Fox commentators intentionally make it harder, but NPR trusts in the professionalism of its staff to maintain their objectivity – as all good journalists must.
In the case of Williams, he has repeatedly done and said things on Fox, often on O’Reilly’s show, that have brought warnings from NPR execs. For example, in 2007 he made comments that Michelle Obama – for reasons that were never clarified - would be better compared to Black Panther leader Stokely Carmichael, rather than Jackie Kennedy. It became clear in his comments that this was a negative association, and that he did not like Michelle Obama. Later that same year, the White House offered to give an interview with NPR, but only if it could select the journalist that would be most amenable - Juan Williams. NPR refused the offer, stating that journalist assignments were the prerogative of the network, not the interviewee. Instead, Juan Williams did conduct the interview - for Fox, and after agreeing to additional restrictions from the White House on what he was allowed to ask about - and then criticized NPR for its hesitancy to engage in such questionable practices.
As a journalist, especially one tasked with objectively covering
Williams was warned, and told, among other things, to stop identifying himself as an "NPR Analyst" in his Fox appearances. This was a long point of contention both because Williams was only a part-time NPR staff, and because he was often used by Fox to represent a straw-man 'liberal perspective' as a result of his NPR credentials.
The comments last Thursday that finally got Williams off the NPR payroll – and firmly entrenched as a Fox pundit – were one more step over the line. NPR Ombudsman, Alicia C. Shepard, has been uncommonly busy this month. On Friday she confessed that the firing was not handled in the best manner, a sentiment echoed on Monday by NPR CEO Vivian Schiller, who formally apologized for the way in which it was handled - but reiterated confidence in the decision itself. Williams was not brought into the discussion until after the decision was made, nor was he given any opportunity to retract his statements or make any corrective measures.
But Williams himself, in a message that was mostly critical of NPR, essentially admitted to doing exactly what he was fired for doing. In his defense, he said that Fox News required very rapid, off-the-cuff style comments which did not lend themselves to the same type of deliberative, cautious, informed journalism that NPR demands in its every product. In other words, Williams defense was that he had failed to maintain his objectivity, but that Fox News made it hard to do so.
Juan Williams – whether a venerable journalist taken down in a Rather-ian lapse of judgment, or an earnest conservative persecuted by his liberal employer – comes out of the event smelling pretty green. He bounces once more into a new medium – from radio to TV after years in print – with the benefit of a hefty contract, a high profile, and a wealth of sympathy from Fox’s core conservative audience.
But a victory for Fox – and rest assured, in the Fox world this story is a coup: they got to make NPR look bad, appear compassionate to a ‘wronged’ journalist, and add one more desperately needed case to their EEO file – does not necessarily equal a loss for NPR.
The coverage has not cast a very positive light on NPR among the partisan press, but for those who value objective, non-partisan news, the incredible lengths to which NPR goes to maintain its objectivity, and the almost alpine standards they employ, are hard to see as a bad thing. Some of the best coverage and most objective coverage has come - not surprisingly to its proponents - from NPR itself. While formal statements from executives have been bumbled, thriving discussions have taken place on-air between the network's most venerable correspondents and concerned listeners. The Diane Rheim show addressed it on Friday with journalists from Slate.com, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal. The topic came up on Talk of the Nation, On the Media, All Things Considered, and even Peter Sagal, host of the weekend comedy news quiz Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, had a few cracks to level at both Williams and NPR.
William’s specific case remains highly debatable - though less so the more he rails for vengeful funding cuts - NPR can defer to its ethics policy and ask, bluntly, if its critics believe that objectivity is important or not. If it is, NPR’s reaction, while rapid and absolute, was well within the range of appropriate responses to the decision Williams knowingly made - time and time again - to give his opinion in a public forum and thus damage his journalistic credibility.
Williams negated his objectivity at an organization that mandates it among all their employees, and wound up about as useful to NPR as a drunk driver at the Indy 500. He could no longer adequately perform his job, and began to put the organization as a whole at risk through his reckless actions. Doing anything less would have been dangerously negligent.
Luckily for Williams, Fox News prefers its news-drivers to be a little more... lubricated.
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