By Bob Gramatges, October 25, 2010
NPR fired Juan Williams last week after he expressed a fear of people in Muslim garb while flying after 9/11. He made the comment on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor during a debate in which, ironically, he argued against the characterization of Muslims as terrorists.
As expected, a media frenzy ensued.
Washington Post’s Molly Moore, Williams’ former colleague, made a weak argument against him on the Politico message boards by comparing his statement to that of a woman expressing fear of black men on the subway. Unfortunately, her argument leaves out a very important component: the terrorist attacks on 9/11.
There’s a reason they are called ‘terrorists.’ They instill fear by definition. And the terrorists who hijacked our planes on 9/11 were in Muslim garb, so Williams’ fear is well founded and does not warrant the bigot card.
But his remarks about Muslims are just the sensational headline, not the reason behind their decision.
NPR’s decision was based on their fear of Fox News, not Juan Williams’ fear of Muslims. In their official statement about the journalist’s termination, they claim that “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.”
However, as Williams pointed out when he hosted The O’Reilly Factor on Friday, NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg has expressed a desire for Republican Senator Jesse Helms to contract the AIDS virus.
Any reasonable person would assume that Totenberg’s vile remarks are not consistent with NPR’s standards and practices, which can only mean one thing: Juan Williams was fired because he made his remarks on Fox News.
And while some would think that NPR was acting as a proxy for the White House in their decision to go after Fox News days before midterm elections, NPR spokeswoman Dana Rehm told Politico that “there’s no relationship between the White House’s criticism of Fox and any discussions about Fox that we’re having.”
Although this statement absolves the news agency of the sin of political partisanship, it points out that NPR is indeed having discussions about Fox News.
And they should be having discussions about Fox News because more people watch Fox than listen to NPR.
But, instead of trying to discredit Fox with publicity stunts, they should try to understand why more people trust Fox.
Juan Williams’ termination is a perfect example.
Liberal ideologues lambaste Fox News for presenting conservative views and hiring very few liberals only in an attempt to seem fair and balanced. They then stigmatize those liberals, like Juan Williams and Mara Liasson, so that they lose credibility and bring Fox News down with them.
What they don’t understand is that the more they go after Fox, the more credibility they lose. Every time they are in the news, their ratings surge. It’s almost like other news agencies want people to tune into Fox.
And now people have even more of a reason to tune into Fox News because they gained an asset in Juan Williams. He believes in true liberalism and the tolerance that characterizes it.
And the millions of people who watch him on Fox know that he vehemently defends the liberal view and does not back down or allow himself to be intimidated by people who don’t agree with him. This serves the audience because it challenges what they think and forces people will opposing views to argue their points with facts, not ideological rhetoric.
Unfortunately, news organizations like NPR choose political correctness over political discourse, and they pay dearly with more and more of their audience members turning to Fox News to see what all the fuss is about.
