–On Democracy Now! (11/8/10):
While Keith Olbermann’s donations became front-page news, little attention has been paid to the massive amount of political spending by MSNBC‘s parent company General Electric, one of the nation’s largest military contractors. Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting reports GE made over $2 million in political contributions in the 2010 election cycle. The top recipient was Republican Senate candidate Rob Portman from Ohio. The company has also spent $32 million on lobbying this year and contributed over $1 million to campaign against a California ballot initiative aimed at eliminating tax loopholes for major corporations.
–George Curry, writing in the Philadelphia Inquirer (11/3/10) about the state of public broadcasting and NPR‘s decision to fire Juan Williams:
When NPR fired Williams, conservatives–who have campaigned for years to eliminate the network’s federal subsidies–charged that it was violating Williams’ First Amendment rights. Williams agreed in a column on Fox‘s website, saying: “To say the least, this is a chilling assault on free speech.”
No it isn’t. Juan Williams, a frequent critic of federal entitlements, is not entitled to a job at NPR or anywhere else. And NPR has done nothing to curtail his freedom of speech. Its executives have decided they no longer want his services, as is their right. It’s a question of fee speech, not free speech.
I worked for a year as a commentator for a show Ed Gordon hosted on NPR. When my contract was not renewed, I did not assert that NPR had violated my First Amendment rights. There is nothing unconstitutional about not renewing a contract.
More important than NPR‘s firing Juan Williams for the wrong reason is its failure to fulfill its original mission. The watchdog group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting noted that the network “has consistently shown a tilt toward elite guests and sources–government officials, corporate representatives and journalists from commercial media.”
FAIR observed, “If the pressure from the right is to be effectively countered, it’s not enough to say, ‘Don’t Defund NPR.’ What is needed is a call for public broadcasting to fulfill its mission” with “independent, provocative programming that features voices ignored or marginalized by the commercial media.”
By definition, Juan Williams wouldn’t fit that description.
Peter, I have a problem with Curry’s reasoning.
Let’s flip this, and say that someone working on immigration issues at a corpress outlet made a comment against “scapegoating the undocumented”, and was fired for it.
Would you support Curry’s contention that it’s the company’s right to do so? Or would you say that the reporter was unjustly fired for expressing her humanity?
I don’t understand why someone should be terminated for stating their views. Shouldn’t the bottom line be whether those views have been shown to influence the journalist’s ability to honestly report the facts?
Williams’ case differs in that he displayed bigotry. This wasn’t a matter of saying something unthinkingly, realizing his prejudice, and sincerely apologizing for it. He may or may not have done so calculatingly, but he certainly did so knowing full well that he was fueling fear and animus toward Muslims.
And that, to me, is prima facie grounds for termination, not that he violated some written agreement about expressing his opinions.
I think when we get so caught up in legalistic arguments, and forget about the moral implications, we create this “even-handed” paradigm in which hate and humanity are somehow equally legitimate.
I just can’t accept such an equation – not and keep my status as a card-carrying member of this species.
Here’s another example of how I believe we are ALL missing opportunities. FAIR is more or less read by “progressives”, or at least open-minded people, yes? So mostly these posts are doing nothing but preaching to the choir, yes? And, OK, for those of us who just like to go “see how they are” after reading some well-written media observation, and to read the comments afterward. There are usually some good comments, but seldom any revelations, which is what we really need?
So when FAIR points out that such and such a newspaper parrots the lame and nonfactual rhetoric of the right from some moronic morning show or newspaper, isn’t that more or less, to us, like pointing out that an elephant has a trunk? Or that some donkeys can sure be an “ass”?
From my perspective, it’s not recognizing (for us) the problem, it’s coming up with a way to fix it.
The story here is not about campaign donations, though electoral reform is badly needed, the story is that a petition circulated and in 24 hours got more signatures than most common variety anti-war, anti-torture, anti-poverty, etc. do on any given day. How did that happen? What psychological mechanism was going on to get so much attention so quickly. Was it perhaps because the media helped focus the issue? Well of course, he was one of their own. But was there something else going on in the couch-potato minds of amerika???
If we could discover that, then maybe we could actually raise a voice loud enough to be heard by our sold-out leaders.
Ya think?
Oh, yeah, and what effect did the petition have on MSNBC reconsidering their position and allowing Oberman to return after only a few short days? I watched both the media reporting and the petition status and there is a very coincidental timing to it. Yet no one is taliing about that, why?
I think the fact that we aren’t talking about this petition and it’s influence, may be sending the wrong message to those of us who tirelessly sign every petition worthy that comes across our virtual desktops…