Comments on: The Juan Williams imbroglio

By: keith kloor

keith kloor — Sat, 23 Oct 2010 00:54:36 +0000

Tom, I’m glad you wrote about this because the story has been really bothering me. You pretty much summarized my sentiments. I too thought that Williams put his comments in a larger context that should have been given greater consideration.

That said, I can see Nabil’s point, as well. In fact, I recently wrote about Geller (http://www.collide-a-scape.com/2010/10/11/whipping-up-the-mob-2/) and have been outspoken on my blog on the feverish anti-Islamic demagoguery that framed the debate over the proposed Muslim cultural center for downtown Manhattan.

I don’t know. As Tom said, this could have been one of those rare opportunities to have a national dialogue on all this stereotyping and irrational fear if NPR had chosen the path Tom laid out.

By: Steve Bloom

Steve Bloom — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:43:21 +0000

I think NPR gets a lot of flack for its bridges to Fox, and was probably just waiting for an excuse to can Williams. Mara next?

By: Nabil

Nabil — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 20:25:37 +0000

I agree that NPR should have finessed this instead of letting others make a heap of spectacle out of it, but what would’ve been the reaction if the comment that got Williams fired read something like this: “When I go some place and I see black people with big Afro hair and a comb, wearing baggy clothes and singing rap, I get worried. I get nervous.” The outrage would have been huge, and rightly so. Unfortunately, it has become all too common to bash Muslims and get away with it in the name of free speech. Fox News and AM radio encourage this kind of opinionated, from-the-gut ‘journalism’ and I guess Juan Williams now will not withhold anything with his 2 million dollar contract. What’s sad about this is that the people who narrowly frame the debate about Islam and Muslims in this country always win. Just think of how conservative blogger Pam Geller helped make the Muslim cultural center in New York the “Monster Groundzero Mosque” and that was the end of the discussion. Williams is most probably not an Islamophobe, but the implicit message of Fox News recruiting him, is that if you can’t insult Muslims in the liberal media, we’ve got a safer home for you.

By: spyder

spyder — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 18:34:53 +0000

My problem with this is that Williams went on O’Reilly to support O’Reilly’s comments on the View. At no time did he apologize for his comments, nor make any substantive effort to correct the inherent racial bias. We have fired journalists for as much when they commented on Jews, Blacks, and Hispanics. But apparently Islamophobia seems to be open-ended in this nation. He has been criticized by NPR over the last several years for appearing as a regular on FoxNews; now he is where he belongs. It is interesting that the timing of his praise of O’Reilly so closely coincided with his hiring by Fox (these sorts of contracts don’t happen overnight).