Juan Williams’ sacking by National Public Radio here in the nation’s capital and Seattle Times cartoonist Molly Norris having to go into hiding might seem totally unrelated, but these two deplorable incidents illustrate in multiple ways the brand of Politically Correct cowardice that is all-too commonplace in American journalism.
Williams’ firing may be the most blatant illustration yet of the utter hypocrisy among too many journalists who claim to stand for freedom of expression and the press, yet lack the cojones to stand up for it when it is under attack. Williams was fired for speaking these words Monday night on Fox News:
“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 the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”
That sparked the utterly predictable demand for Williams to be fired from Muslim propagandists like Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations:
“NPR should address the fact that one of its news analysts seems to believe that all airline passengers who are perceived to be Muslim can legitimately be viewed as security threats. Such irresponsible and inflammatory comments would not be tolerated if they targeted any other racial, ethnic or religious minority, and they should not pass without action by NPR.”
So NPR did what Awad demanded and fired Williams, but tried to justify the execution as somehow “inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.” You can read the NPR statement here.
If saying he sometimes feels exactly the same worry felt by millions of his fellow Americans who have gotten on commerical airliners since 9/11 is contrary to NPR’s alleged editorial standards, then the taxpayers who help fund this faux news operation should demand some answers about what those standards are, who approved them, and on what are they based.
The truth is, as former CBS News reporter Bernie Goldberg explained, that Williams violated the PC ban against saying anything remotely construable in any way by anybody anywhere at any time as possibly critical of Muslims as a group. It matters not one whit to the PC Commissars whether what the offender has said has any factual basis whatsoever.
“Juan’s ‘crime’ wasn’t that he said something bigoted. His crime is that he said something that liberals find politically incorrect. And that he said it out loud. And worst of all, that he said it on the Fox News Channel,” Goldberg said.
I’ve never met Williams, though I’ve been reading his byline since his early days as a Washington Post reporter and watched him spar for years on Fox with a variety of folks with whom he, as a rather conventional liberal, usually disagrees. That he has been abused so unjustly – and by a partially government-funded and entirely government-created “news” organization – is simply unbelievable.
As bad as it is to be fired in such a public fashion, it is far worse to be a newspaper cartoonist who does a cartoon containing editorial commentary on the Prophet Mohammed, and to then be told by your government that you have no alternative but to go into hiding because the FBI cannot protect you from threatened retaliation by radical Muslims.
This newspaper discussed the Norris situation in a Sept. 20 editorial that noted the fact that the Society of Professional Journalists had to date said nothing on the Norris issue. Judging by the SPJ web site, that silence has continued to the present day.
But a week after our editorial appeared, I was shocked to learn that SPJ was circulating to inquiring journalists a statement claiming “the Examiner did not accept SPJ Headquarters’ contact information for the Society’s Washington Pro chapter, nor for our National President, so that the Examiner could pursue any legitimate information or stand point from us. It is important to note that their article was not a legitimate news piece with factual sources, but opinion focused.”
That statement is an utter fabrication because it conveniently ignores what The Examiner asked SPJ – Has the national SPJ made a statement on the Norris issue. I know this because The Examiner’s Mark Hemingway recorded his Sept. 19 conversation with SPJ spokesman Scott Leadingham.
So on Oct. 6 I emailed SPJ’s executive director, Joe Skeel, and then-national president, Kevin Smith, quoting the key passage from the transcript of the Hemingway-Leadingham conversation and requesting an apology to this newspaper for the blatant misrepresentation of its editorial by an SPJ spokesman.
To date, neither Skeel nor Smith has responded.
Here is the transcript of the Hemingway-Leadingham conversation:
“Hemingway: I called because I was wondering if you guys have issued any statement or comment, are you familiar with the the Molly Norris situation?
Scott Leadingham, SPJ: No, sorry could you bring me up to speed?
Hemingway: She is the cartoonist with the Seattle Weekly newspaper in Seattle that started the ‘Everybody Draw Mohammed Day.’ She’s now gone into hiding with the help of the FBI.
Scott Leadingham, SPJ: Oh wow, I didn’t know that. Ok.
Hemingway: I was just wondering if you guys had said anything. I’m guessing the answer is no.
Scott Leadingham, SPJ: That is correct. We haven’t officially. I’m not aware if our chapter in Western Washington in Seattle did. Sometimes our chapters kind of act autonomously, especially responding to kind of local situations, so you might check in with them, but I can tell you no emphatically that from a national perspective we have not.”
Note that, not only did Leadingham confirm that SPJ had made no statement on the Norris issue as of Sept. 19, but SPJ’s national spokesman wasn’t even aware of the Norris issue.
One might expect otherwise from an organization that claims in its mission statement that it is dedicated to “constant vigilance in protection of the First Amendment guarantees of freedom of speech and of the press.”
SPJ leaders should change “constant” to something more accurate, something perhaps along the lines of “when it’s politically correct or safe.”
UPDATE: Atlantic columnists defend Williams
Jeffrey Goldberg, wroting on The Atlantic blog, offers this observation on Williams and the deplorable state of American journalism:
“I think what I’m reacting to so strongly here is the Inquisition-like state of journalism today, in which speech deemed offensive to Jews and Muslims in particular is considered immediate grounds for firing,” Goldberg said.
“Juan Williams’s statements on Islam and terrorism could have provoked an interesting debate about profiling, about the place of Muslims in society, about finding a middle ground in the battle against Islamist terror. Instead, they have led to a conversation about his firing, and they have provided the extreme right, which I believe has a very destructive and simplistic understanding of the threat posed by Islamist terrorists, with another free speech martyr.”
But it is precisely such intelligent discussion that PC advocates seek to suppress.
And Clive Crook, writing on the same blog, reminds us of something not dis-similar said not so long ago by Rev. Jesse Jackson, and of the fact that among the disturbing results of PC orthodoxy is how it robs critically important words – like “racism” – of meaning:
“Jesse Jackson once said:
“‘There is nothing more painful to me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved …’
“I don’t think that made Jackson a bigot, either. If we want the charge to retain its sting, as we should, we ought to use it cautiously. It needs to mean something worse than ordinary human weakness. Show me some malice. (The remarks that led to Helen Thomas’s forced retirement would qualify.) If what Williams said was bigoted, then this is a nation of bigots, and the term no longer means anything.”
