{"id":589,"date":"2010-10-22T16:08:18","date_gmt":"2010-10-22T20:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=589"},"modified":"2010-10-22T16:08:18","modified_gmt":"2010-10-22T20:08:18","slug":"oh-gracious-oy-vay-mama-mia-my-bon-dieu-holy-cow-ay-carramba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2010\/10\/22\/oh-gracious-oy-vay-mama-mia-my-bon-dieu-holy-cow-ay-carramba\/","title":{"rendered":"Oh gracious, oy vay, mama mia, my bon dieu, holy cow, ay carramba!"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been trying to blog for the past 36 hours but the brouhaha over NPR’s firing of Juan Williams has, well, taken a lot of my attention away from other activities. If you’re wondering what this is all about, check out the In Box<\/a> discussion of the issue, i.e., should news reporters\/analysts express personal opinions in public forums?<\/p>\n

Here’s the official NPR response to listeners:<\/p>\n

“Late Wednesday evening we gave Juan Williams notice that we\u2019ve terminated his contract as a Senior News Analyst for NPR News. We didn\u2019t make this decision lightly or without regret. Juan has been a valuable contributor to NPR and public radio for many years.<\/p>\n

However, his remarks on The O\u2019Reilly Factor<\/em> this past Monday violated our ethics guidelines<\/a>. Unfortunately, this has occurred several times in other media. Our decision to end our contractual relationship with Juan has come after repeated conversations and warnings about some of his public comments. \u00a0This was a difficult, but principled decision.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve been contacted by listeners who have passionately agreed with our decision, as well as those who have disagreed with it, with equal conviction. We hear you both and respect your perspectives. At the same time, we believe that the public is better served by NPR holding firm to the values and standards that have guided us for many years.<\/p>\n

As some listeners have also asked for more details about our funding, you can find a detailed overview of our funding on our website in our \u201cAbout\u201d section: http:\/\/www.npr.org\/about\/aboutnpr\/<\/a> Of note, and as is explained in that site, NPR, Inc. has received no direct operating support from the federal government since 1983.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I recognize that this decision has sparked a strong debate in the blogosphere and elsewhere, and that you have a firm position on the matter. While we stand by our policy, we also regret that we were compelled to take the actions that we did.”<\/p>\n

Now, we must grapple with a number of complicated ethics issues–in the context of the new landscape that includes web pages, blogs, pod feeds, tweets, you name it. Check out the link to the ethics guide lines in the letter above. It’s the document we go by here at NCPR.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have been trying to blog for the past 36 hours but the brouhaha over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[5354,89],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/589\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}