Beyond the Spin: The real trouble with NPR

First it was Helen Thomas. Then it was Rick Sanchez. And now it's Juan Williams. All were fired or pressured to resign because of controversial comments they made away from their places of employment.

Williams' case illustrates the difficulty of trying to blend fact-based analysis with what's been called opinion-tainment. It was wrong for National Public Radio to allow Williams to appear on Fox News as a commentator and then cancel his contract because it disagreed with his opinion.

NPR decided to fire Williams after he said in a discussion with Bill O'Reilly, "I mean, look, Bill. I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on a plane, I've got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they're identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

Williams also said, "Timothy McVeigh, the Atlanta bomber, these people who are protesting against homosexuality at military funerals - very obnoxious - you don't say first and foremost, we got a problem with Christians. That'd be crazy."

It's crazy to ignore the fact that Juan Williams had been working for Fox for three years when NPR decided to hire him a decade ago. NPR entered into the relationship with its eyes open and has no one to blame but itself.

This is not the first time Juan Williams said something on Fox that made NPR executives cringe. Appearing on The O'Reilly Factor in January 2009, Williams said of Michelle Obama, "She's got this Stokely-Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going on. ... Her instinct is to start with this 'Blame America,' you know, 'I'm the victim.' If that stuff starts to come out, people will go bananas." Of course, there's nothing about Michelle Obama that merits comparison to Carmichael, the militant who headed the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

After that comment, NPR urged Williams to avoid having his NPR affiliation noted during his Fox appearances. Still, NPR continued to look the other way as Williams repeatedly violated its ethics code.