NPR executive: tea party activists “xenophobic” and “racist”
A conservative media group tricked senior NPR executives into taking a meeting with individuals “posing as Muslims,” by pretending that an Islamic group was considering making a $5 million donation to public broadcasting.
During the conversation, video-recorded by the activists, NPR executives made incendiary comments about conservatives, Christians, Republicans and tea party activists.
At one point, NPR fundraising executive Ron Schiller expresses a “personal opinion” that tea party activists are “xenophobic” and “racist.”
“The educated, so-called elite in this country is too small a percentage of the population, so that you have this very large, uneducated part of the population that carries these ideas.”
Watch the edited video below. (The raw two-hour video can be seen here.)
NPR released the following statement:
The fraudulent organization represented in this video repeatedly pressed us to accept a $5 million check, with no strings attached, which we repeatedly refused to accept.
We were appalled by the comments made by Ron Schiller in the video, which are contrary to what NPR stands for. Mr. Schiller announced last week that he is leaving NPR for another job.
Note: You can read more NPR reaction to the sting in this post by Mark Memmott in “The Two-Way,” NPR’s news blog.
The sting video is released as Congress is considering deep cuts to or elimination of funding for public broadcasting.
Here’s a statement from Ellen Rocco, GM of North Country Public Radio, and a former member of NPR’s board.
Mr. Schiller and Ms. Liley do not speak for public radio professionals. Not by a long shot.
At NCPR, our mission is to bring thorough, balanced and fair coverage of all issues to the people we serve. Our mission is to offer the highest quality news, information and cultural content we can.
Our reporters do not divide the population of this country into categories of good and bad, liberal and conservative, educated and ignorant. We do not divide people by religion, race or ethnic background.
Our work is to create a space where all of us can come to learn and talk about the world around us. Our work is keep the public informed so that we have a strong democracy.
We are a resource shared by all Americans and, as such, we disagree with the comments by Mr. Schiller: we believe that public funds should be a part, not all, but a part of what pays the bills for non-commercial public media.
We unequivocally remove ourselves from much of what Mr. Schiller and Ms. Liley said on this tape. We expect NPR to take appropriate action in response to this tape.
This incident follows similar stings made against other organizations which conservatives consider to be left-leaning, including ACORN, Planned Parenthood and Democratic members of Congress.
Tags: politics
NPR is actually embarassed when its employees do or say stupid things. Better than some other news outlets.
I’m intrigued by the fact that the right oppose Wikileaks’ actions in favor of revelation and transparency on the corporate state but funds these stings.
Mr. Schiller’s opinions and comments do not present a national security issue; Wikileaks actions do raise such an issue. Hardly a fair comparison.
Don’t be embarrassed, Brian.
As to this and all other stings, those who do them should be embarrassed at not having a real job.
Hee, hee, hee, chuckle, chuckle, chuckle – gotcha is what little boys and girls do when not farting and drinking beer.
Bob: Gadhaffi’s hot Ukranian nurse is a national security issue? Merkel’s boringness or Sarkozy’s Napoleon complex are national security issues? Most of what Wikileaks revealed fell under the category embarassing, some of it revealed despicable, possibly criminal, behavior by the US and/or other governments, hardly any of it (if any at all) harmed national security.
Sec. of State Hillary Clinton’s comment re: Wikileaks;
” Lets be clear. This disclosure is not just an attack on American foreign policy interests. It is an attack on the international community, the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity.”
The point is that it is not what the subject matter of the conversation is but rather that the conversations themselves have been revealed.
The trouble with “National Security” is that in the view of the Federal Government everything is national security, or so they claim.
But it often seems the security being protected is the security of elected and appointed officials who don’t like anyone questioning their actions.
What’s good for them is not good for us, so they claim. We are expected to trust them while they do not trust us.
Explain to me the difference between Washington and the Roman Catholic Church. Both demand followers. Neither wants to be questioned.
Ron Schiller … IDIOT! Reasonable people might look at this and say, “oh, well, he was set up, they were phishing for it, his opinion, well, he was fired, etc”. The future of NPR, however, is not in the hands of reasonable people. It is in the hands of ideological zealots who will not rest until all public funding has been eliminated. Ron just loaded their gun for them. MAybe he owuld like a job with ACORN!
September 3, 2009; Washington, D.C. – Ronald J. Schiller, currently Vice President for Alumni Relations and Development for University of Chicago, will become NPR’s top fundraiser later this month.
“I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here! ”
Captain Renault
All the people who were lambasting NPR for not protecting Juan Williams’ freedom of speech, where are they now?
So NPR’s chief fundraiser (NOT A NEWS PERSON, mind you, but a money person) personally thinks the Tea Party is a bunch of kooks. Color me underwhelmed.
Maybe it’s time you local stations just got ready for the Federal ax, and make the best of it. Not worth the hassle of fighting these idiots.
If you get cut 100% of your 15% of operating budget, I promise to increase my pledge by 15%. So will others.
I wouldn’t say he was “tricked”.
Sorry maybe he was tricked into attending the meeting. Not tricked into saying what he said.
On the tapes, Schiller wastes little time before attacking conservatives. The Republican Party, Schiller says, has been “hijacked by this group.” The man posing as Malik finishes the sentence by adding, “the radical, racist, Islamaphobic, Tea Party people.” Schiller agrees and intensifies the criticism, saying that the Tea Party people aren’t “just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.”
Schiller goes on to describe liberals as more intelligent and informed than conservatives. “In my personal opinion, liberals today might be more educated, fair and balanced than conservatives,” he said.
I have been a supporter of public broadcasting for years. I believe that the best news program on TV is the PBS Newshour and I believe that public radio generally has the most informative programs in that media. But I find this incident and the Juan Williams affair to be inexcusable and powerful ammunition for those want to defund public broadcasting. One can only wonder how deep the strain of elitism and disdain for populists runs in the NPR community. It’s stupid to get caught but it’s far worse to publicly espouse thoughtful and balanced reporting when you don’t practice it. Sorry, but it reminds me a little of the sanctimonious conservative congressman who gets caught cheating on his wife.
“The educated, so-called elite in this country is too small a percentage of the population, so that you have this very large, uneducated part of the population that carries these ideas.”
Calling the tea party xenophobic and suggesting those views are held by an uneducated portion of the population…
Is that the worst of it?
Is NPR a not for profit that gets government grants or is it a government agency?
What ever happened to “you shall not bear false witness…”?
Must be conservatives no longer believe in the Ten Commandments.
I don’t know I never liked that sort of thing, lying about your identity to get someone to say something stupid or to spy on people or to say what they really believe.
The development person is not a government employee, many not for profits have political opinions that they are allowed to express and still get government financing.
This is great! Let’s put it in non-PC pain talk- a big time lib NPR staffer stuck both feet in his mouth up to the hips and showed his true colors. Yup, no elitism on display here. HE WAS TRICKED!!!! Gee, how come it was so funny when the guy pretending to be one of the Koch brothers got through to a Repub and had a nice long conversation with him? Stupid redneck Republican fell for it! Boy, what a hoot! But in this case it’s… it’s LYING!!! That’s not fair! Gee, not like this is new. The NPR staffer that posted her comments about wanting to see Rush Limbaugh dead and got caught….well, that wasn’t supposed to be seen by the lowly masses, just those elites Schiller was talking about, the people intelligent enough to realize she was right, that Limbaugh should be dead!
Perception people. It’s all in your perception. Duck and cover all you want but NPR is no more unbiased than any other group.
Hey, one more- How come it was hilarious when the people filming “Bruno” tricked Ron Paul into a bed room for a gay sex scene but this is just wrong? Face it NPR, your bias is showing.
I think they pulled the same thing on the Gov of Wisconsin recently pretending to be the Koch brothers or something. This kind of stuff certainly is not just on the conservative side that is for sure. I still don’t like it though. I don’t think anyone is surprised that NPR staffers particularly at the national level are biased toward the Liberal end of the spectrum, but I am not sure that is enough to not get some government funding.
First I didn’t see “Bruno” because I don’t think Sacha Baron Cohen is funny. His brand of humor is stupid, vulgar, crude, mean spirited and unenlightening–except that I learn something about people who find it funny. Not that I have a problem with stupid, vulgar, or crude humor if it is enlightening in some way but the cruelness of it is inexcusable.
That said I didn’t find all much that Schiller said to be offensive. The “citizen journalists” tried to bait him by saying offensive things and he didn’t immediately contradict them, we used to call that listening politely. Some of the things he did say were misrepresented in the titles provided. Nor do we know what was said but edited out. This “expose” is as unenlightening as Sacha Baron Cohen.
Part of it is not being exposed to people when we are segregated from each other you get a real parochialism develop. I think that goes for being around both Muslims and Evangelical Christians for example. How many Fundamentalist Christians work for NPR for example? They represent probably 25-35% of the population so they should have a voice.
I say that because Shiller was wanting a Muslim voice, which IS a good thing. But the fact is the voice he represents is pretty small and pretty narrow.
Bret, I don’t see that much outrage from anybody about this guy getting tricked.
He should have known better.
The end.
Nevertheless, I agree that there is a liberal bias at NPR.
Examples:
– Lots of stories about poor, sick, and oppressed people, as if there was something wrong with that.
– Few stories about rich, happy, and powerful people (except despots) like you can see on C-NBC Headline News, or, perhaps, Fox.
Also, NPR is biased toward people who believe certain things (e.g., President Obama was born in Hawaii, the Earth is very old, and life, including human life, evolved over millions of years), simply because all logical evidence points towards these conclusions. A more balanced news source would give much more time to the belief that Obama was born in Africa and the world and all life created less than 10,000 years ago, because it makes people happy to believe these things, and selling happiness is more profitable than selling truth.
I still am not seeing how we are getting from point A to point B on this one.
Point A being that a fundraiser shared some personal opinions while yucking it up with a potential donor.
Point B being that NPR produces a biased product.
It seems like people who want to believe in Point B are making a linkage here that doesn’t logically exist. I am fairly certain this guy has no influence over the media or programming side of NPR.
dave is right.
NPR needs to get a spine. The same people who listen to the vile filth spewed by Rush or Beck are shocked! that Schiller points out that many Americans are ignorant. Well folks, there was (maybe still is) a TV show “Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader” and millions of people watched it.
Big banks and Wall Street insiders nearly collapsed the economy; we spent nearly a trillion bailing them out but who has gone to jail? And now the Gov. of Ohio (a Wall Street guy) wants to bust the Unions for making a decent wage and trying to get good benefits.
The price of gas has topped $4 a gallon in the recent past; it is now above $3.65 a gallon around here. Everyone tells us there is no problem with supply. So why is the price so high? And why did people keep buying big gas guzzlers after the last price spike?
I could go on all day. Tell me people aren’t ignorant.
This fundraiser couldn’t raise funds without badmouthing others, to people he did not know? Evenhandedness and impartiality is supposed to be what NPR is all about. There is a major “gotcha” environment out there, and NPR needs to understand that it is a part of it.
Would Ellen Rocco & staff fall for this sort of thing if someone purporting to represent whomever walked in pretending to be waving a check to , say $100,000 for the station, and trying to elicit negative comments about tea partyers, or whatever? I don’t think so. You save those comments for people you know and trust, or you shouldn’t be in the business.
What I find ironic here is that when someone on the far right says something totally outrageous, their more moderate cohorts may quietly distance themselves from the remarks but none openly repudiate them. Often the speaker gets rewarded with attention from Fox and other right wing media.
If the speaker is on the left however, even if the opinion expressed is stated as being a personal view and is expressed in what they perceive as private, their cohorts are “shocked’ and demand that the speaker go immediately to the stocks to be publicly humiliated for saying what they really think.
I’m sure there will be those how will want to send me to the stocks but there is more than a little truth in several of his remarks about the Tea Party IMO. His “sin” was in not couching his thoughts in the more diplomatic (read “wishy-washy”) terms of political correctness. You may now proceed to through eggs at me.
Knuck- never saw the movie, the points was nobody on the left thought it was “bad” at the time. In fact, it was considered funny.
Newt- NPRs bias is politcal, leftist, not down the middle like they claim. NCPRs bias is leftist and political too. That’s been proven time and again, especially by the Station Manager. This has nothing to do evolution, God, birth places, economic position, etc. It has to do with a institutional bias that’s been evident since day one at NPR and is clearly evident in your post. To wit- people who believe in, listen to and support NPR and it’s affiliates are simply smarter and more compassionate than other people. The Tea Party is made up ignorant homophobe, hate mongering, xenophobic rednecks. Black and white, night and day, them and us. There’s nothing wrong with that anymore than there is in you and I having a different outlook on things. It’s when you take public funding, claim to be not just fair, but unbiased, and then your people get caught being human and having opinions that can affect things…that’s where the important part lays.
I can accept NPR being what it is, I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with this myth that anyone associated with NPR or anyone falling to the left side of the political spectrum somehow being “better”, smarter, more compassionate or caring, more concerned for our future, etc. That’s called elitism, snobbery, ego and it generally leads to an eventual downfall over time.
Even in 2003 the NPR bis was evident and self admitted- http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3827/is_200311/ai_n9317144/
Or what when about Andrei Condrescu on his “All Things Considered” once said of Christians, “The evaporation of four million who believe in this crap would leave this world a better place.”
Nope, any bias is all in my mind.
“Mr. Schiller and Ms. Liley do not speak for public radio professionals. Not by a long shot.”
Ellen, how do you figure? NPR executives do not speak for NPR???
Who does? Is it only the folks that don’t embarrass NPR that speak for NPR?
Ron Shiller said this in his “apology”:
“While the meeting I participated in turned out to be a ruse, I made statements during the course of the meeting that are counter to NPR’s values and also not reflective of my own beliefs.”
This guy should maybe just keep his mouth shut. Obviously these are his “own beliefs” the question is can we be sure that they are “counter to NPR’s values”? Look at many of the comments at NPR. I think that what he said could be viewed as the “values” of many of the NPR listeners.
Vivian Schiller has resigned over this whole affair.
Those who want to de-fund public radio and TV will always find an excuse.
Paul, the people who speak for public radio or TV are those who listen and watch. This is true for any and all products. It is the consumer who speaks for the product.
If one is not a consumer of the product, such as those who rant and rave over public radio and TV, then they should watch or listen to what they want and stop screaming about how offended they are.
Pete, What does this have to do with people who want to cut public media funding?
Pete,
It sounds like the folks at NPR and NCPR are offended.
The problem here, as it was with Williams, is how the top dogs at NPR feel the need to prove how they are fair and balanced, and end up shooting themselves in the foot.
This is a no-win reaction when you are being attacked by Republican conservatives who have little or no interest in being either fair or balanced.
As to the people who want to cut public media funding, I would say their desire is to cut public media funding to those they claim are too liberal.
To that I would respond, so let’s help fund a public media that is too conservative. Wouldn’t that be the fair and balanced thing to do?
“This is a no-win reaction when you are being attacked by Republican conservatives who have little or no interest in being either fair or balanced.”
Peter, what are you talking about?
What attack? Aren’t we talking about what the NPR guy said? That is an NPR executive doing the talking where is the attack? Is someone unfairly making something up and attacking someone?
When you screw up you screw up nobody but that guy is at fault unless this is SOP. They have other videos so I guess we will see if this is just an outlier.
I still feel that NPR is the most balanced media I watch or listen to. It isn’t perfect but no one is.