Fox News moved swiftly to turn the controversy over Juan Williams’ firing by NPR to its advantage, offering Williams an expanded role on the network and a new three-year contract Thursday in a deal that amounts to nearly $2 million.
"Juan has been a staunch defender of liberal viewpoints since his tenure began at Fox News in 1997,” Fox’s Roger Ailes said in a statement, first reported in the Los Angeles Times. “He’s an honest man whose freedom of speech is protected by Fox News on a daily basis.”
NPR’s decision to fire Williams over comments he made about Muslims on Fox has prompted calls on the right for Congress to remove its funding. Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) plans to introduce a bill to strip any federal money – which NPR says amounts to about 2 percent of its annual budget.
“I think it’s reasonable to ask why Congress is spending taxpayers’ money to support a left-wing radio network – and in the wake of Juan Williams’ firing, it’s clearer than ever that’s what NPR is,” said House Republican leader John Boehner (R-Ohio.)
And Williams’ firing raised the uncomfortable prospect for Democrats that the issue could remind voters of the backlash over the lower Manhattan mosque in the final two weeks before the midterm elections.
The biggest names in conservative politics — including Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin, both paid Fox News contributors like Williams —rushed to his defense after he said he gets “nervous” when he sees people in Muslim dress boarding an airplane.
Williams discussed the circumstances of his firing for the first time Thursday, saying he was fired over the phone without being given a chance to come in and make his case, despite having worked at NPR for 10 years.
In regard to his comments about Muslims on Bill O’Reilly’s show this week on Fox, he was told “that crosses the line” and that there wasn’t anything he could say to change NPR executives’ minds that his statements were bigoted. (See: NPR fires Juan Williams)
He argued that he was just making an honest statement about his emotional response, adding, “You cannot ignore what happened on 9/11.”
NPR CEO Vivian Schiller told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Williams’ firing was more of a “last straw” than a response to a single comment, saying, “There have been several instances over the last couple of years where we felt Juan has stepped over the line.”
Most famously, NPR asked Williams to stop identifying himself an an NPR news analyst while speaking on Fox last year after he said “Michelle Obama, you know, she’s got this Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress thing going” and that she’d be an “albatross” for President Barack Obama.
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Posted By: DAVID JOHNSON
Friday, October 22nd 2010 at 9:46AM
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