Several lessons to be learned from that NPR fiasco involving the firing of Juan Williams:
First, you cannot serve two masters. Maybe it’s the allure of cachet and cash, but how does anyone work for NPR and Fox News Channel? That’s like hanging out with Amy Goodman and Sean Hannity. It isn’t done. Sooner or later one or the other plays the zero-sum card.
Second, you don’t fire somebody, “journalistic ethics” policy notwithstanding, for voicing a hardly unique, unfortunately understandable, post-9/11 sentiment about who’s on a plane with you–however politically incorrect that is. Williams, like every other flier, doesn’t travel in an emotional cocoon. But unlike most other fliers he has a forum to voice these shared gut feelings. He did so–on The O’Reilly Factor–and paid the NPR price.
Third, NPR now has to confront awful PR in the midst of pledge season. Many of its listeners, who also ride post-9/11 planes, have complained about the firing. Legislators are re-thinking the government’s share of NPR’s financing. And even worse, it just provided the usual suspects with talking points that resonate beyond Tea Partiers.
And Williams just signed a three-year, $2-million deal with Fox.