NPR announced on Wednesday that the public radio network’s board had accepted the resignation of its chief executive, Vivian Schiller.Read the rest here.
Controversy has swirled around NPR in recent months, as Republicans in Congress have sought to reduce or eliminate money for NPR from the federal budget and as conservatives have accused the network of having a liberal bias. Most recently, a political activist released a video clip showing a fundraising executive giving harsh personal views of the Tea Party movement in a meeting with people posing as prospective donors.
Ms. Schiller was quick to condemn those remarks, made by Glenn Schiller, who is no relation to her, and Mr. Schiller moved up his already planned departure from NPR to leave immediately.
But Ms. Schiller had also drawn criticism for the network’s handling of the dismissal of a political commentator, Juan Williams.
Ms. Schiller joined NPR in January 2009 after serving as a senior vice president at The New York Times Company, where she was general manager of nytimes.com.
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What a relief to see that those seeking to destroy community radio are doing so for political reasons and not from a desire to deprive the country of non-corporate media.
ReplyDeleteDismayed at her resignatio¬n and the big deal made over remarks made by Ron Schiller, NPR's vice president for developmen¬t; he is entitled to say what he wants to say when not at work and ironically he works for Public Radio partially supported by public funds in a democracy where we are guaranteed the right to free speech. Both Schiller' should have rolled with the punches. The Tea Partyists are tightly linked to the Koch Brother and John Birch Society. Ron Schiller's hyperbole was closer to the truth than not.
ReplyDeleteWould wish that the sting operations be applied to the bankers and wall street types instead. The amount of federal money going to NPR is less than nothing in comparison. If I believed in conspiracy theories, I would suspect that these sorts of culture war flares are deliberate diversions set up to keep the raw tea party energy away from the financial sector.
ReplyDeleteIt's not news that NPR executives have a liberal bias and generally don't like tea partiers, Republicans, and conservative Christians, and may resort to derogatory characterizations if in the company of those they believe hold the same opinions. So what?
The fact that an amateur provocateur like O Keefe can fool them with such a see through prank and make them look so bad is evidence that they are incompetant, which is a valid reason to step down.