{"id":3878,"date":"2011-03-08T11:36:05","date_gmt":"2011-03-08T16:36:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/?p=3878"},"modified":"2011-03-08T14:10:19","modified_gmt":"2011-03-08T19:10:19","slug":"npr-executive-tea-party-activists-xenophobic-and-racist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/2011\/03\/08\/npr-executive-tea-party-activists-xenophobic-and-racist\/","title":{"rendered":"NPR executive: tea party activists “xenophobic” and “racist”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/p>\n

During the conversation, video-recorded by the activists, NPR executives made incendiary comments<\/a> about conservatives, Christians, Republicans and tea party activists.<\/p>\n

At one point, NPR fundraising executive Ron Schiller expresses a “personal opinion” that tea party activists are “xenophobic” and “racist.”<\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

Watch the edited video below. (The raw two-hour video can be seen <\/em>here<\/em><\/a>.)<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

NPR released the following statement:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

We were appalled by the comments made by Ron Schiller in the video, which are contrary to what NPR stands for.\u00a0 Mr. Schiller announced last week that he is leaving NPR for another job.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note:<\/strong> You can read more NPR reaction\u00a0to the sting in<\/em> this post by Mark Memmott in<\/em><\/a> “The Two-Way,” NPR’s news blog.<\/em><\/p>\n

The sting video is released as Congress is considering deep cuts to or elimination of funding for public broadcasting.<\/p>\n

Here’s a statement from Ellen Rocco, GM of North Country Public Radio, and a former member of NPR’s board.<\/p>\n

Mr. Schiller and Ms. Liley do not speak for public radio professionals. Not by a long shot.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A conservative media group tricked senior NPR executives into taking a meeting with individuals “posing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[20],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3879,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3878\/revisions\/3879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/inbox\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}