National Public Radio chief quits in new surrender to extreme right

[Hannah Bell]

Vivian Schiller, president and CEO of National Public Radio (NPR) in the US, resigned March 9 in the wake of another “dirty tricks” incident staged by extreme right operatives.

Schiller, who had held the posts since January 2009, was forced out by the organization’s board after a hidden-camera videotape aired showing NPR fundraiser Ronald Schiller (no relation) expressing disapproval of the Republican Party and the Tea Party movement. The latter Schiller was immediately suspended by NPR, although he had already given notice he would take a position with the Aspen Institute, a job he has now announced he will not take.

The video operation was organized by James O’Keefe, a right-wing activist, who has previously targeted Planned Parenthood and ACORN...In the present case, two of O’Keefe’s confederates secretly recorded a conversation with Ronald Schiller and another NPR executive, pretending to be members of the fictitious Muslim Education Action Center Trust and offering a $5 million donation to NPR. (The fundraisers turned down the money.)

The fake “Muslims” attempted to coax anti-Semitic comments from Schiller, but he professed to find no “Zionist or pro-Israel” influence at NPR, suggesting that the organization was “really looking for a fair point of view” on the Middle East. These innocuous comments have now caused a sordid media storm...What precisely does NPR “stand for” at present? Centrally, as the present episode reveals, groveling to the extreme right wing of the Republican Party...These are people who carry out their daily activities with one principal goal in mind: not offending the Murdoch-owned news outlets and the right-wing media in general. As a consequence, virtually everything they produce is mealy-mouthed, half-hearted and insincere.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/schi-m10.shtml

[Name removed]

1. Deleted message

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[Hannah Bell]

3. why did she resign? what was the terrible crime that forced that resignation

plus the firing of the man who made the remarks?

i'd call it a groveling subservience to the far right.

and wisconsin democrats have nothing to do with it.

"extremism" is the right wing of the republican party.

as events in wisconsin have demonstrated, some of their actions border on fascistic at the moment.

[sabrina 1]

4. The comments made by Schiller, Ron I mean were absolutely

true about the racist teabaggers and the Republican party.

No one should resign when the truth is told.

NPR should refuse public funding as it seems it is causing them to call the truth 'appalling' and to suck up to the right and act like telling the truth is somehow wrong.

What they SHOULD have done was to congratulate Schiller for standing up for Muslims in his comments and for the reminder of the vile racism of the right.

Then they should have done an indepth story on that POS racist, James O'Keefe documenting his cowardly history of racism, which he includes in every one of his lying stunts.

They should also have gone after the disgraceful MSM for actually referring to this criminal twit as a 'film-maker'. He should be referred to properly as the felon who is currently on probation for crimes committed previously and who is now being sued by other people he smeared and lied about in his edited, childish tapes.

They should also have mentioned his plan to entrap a female report in his grade-school idea of a sex trap, alone on a boat with him. And point out that even his own female colleague became scared for the safety of the CNN reporter and warned her of what he was about to do.

That, as well illegally taping a conversation with the reporter should have landed him in jail as a violation of his probation.

And there's more on this sorry excuse for a human being, going back to his days in college where his racism was first recorded, on his own blog, which he has since scrubbed.

Then they should have delved into who is funding this moronic imbecile. That is what we all want to know and what they do NOT want us to find out.

The MSM of course, would never expose this little shit for some reason. Another reason we need to kinow who is funding him.

But instead of doing all that, which a good news organization WOULD do, NPR decided to cave, like Van Jones and others, because they want that funding, and I hope for the sake of their survival as a decent news organization, they either decide they don't want it, or they don't get it. Then they will free to cover the facts about the treasonous, extreme right that has spent decades attempting to undermine this country.

[ellenrr]

5. a totally non-religious AMEN! n/t

[defendandprotect]

2. This is so ridiculous that I can only think that this candle was burned from both ends ... ???

[sendero]

6. To all the bleating anti "political correctness" hacks out there..

... well here it is. The man said the TRUTH without MINCING WORDS. Oh WHAT, YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH. Better call the PC police you hypocritical bastards.

And, I knew NPR was over back in 2001 when I had to listen to CATO, Heritage, Enterprise and more every god damn day.

NPR is OVER. They are just like Obama, progressive in name only and just giving us a bad name.