NPR Hires Law Firm to Conduct Investigation of Juan Williams Firing

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) November 12, 2010 -- NPR has hired the multi-national law firm of Weil, Gotshal and Manges to conduct an internal investigation of the firing of NPR news analyst Juan Williams on October 20, after Williams told Fox News' Bill O'Reilly on the air that "I'm not a bigot" but that if Williams sees people on a plane, "who are in Muslim garb . . .I get worried, I get nervous."

Chairman of the NPR Board, Dave Edwards, made the announcement Thursday morning at a public session of an NPR Board meeting held at the network's Washington D.C. offices. Edwards said that Weil, Gotshal was hired as they are "highly regarded with considerable expertise in governance issues." Edwards said that the review is underway and "has no deadline," and that it will involve the Weil, Gotshal team speaking with those involved with the firing, reviewing internal documents, and making a report to the board. Weil, Gotshal has done work for NPR over the years, including fighting the record industry rate increases for streaming music on the web.

[Efforts to reach Juan Williams for comment on the announcement of the NPR internal investigation were underway at press time, and his response or comments will be posted when received.]

The Williams firing by NPR CEO Vivian Schiller led to an unprecedented blowback of controversy for the public radio network. Office phone lines reportedly rang "non-stop like an alarm bell with no off button," according to NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard, who wrote at the time that "We've received more than 8,000 emails, a record with nothing a close second." The tsunami of electronic messages, mostly against but some supporting the firing, crashed the NPR "Contact Us" form on the network's web site. NPR also had to increase security to check visitors to the network's offices after receiving a bomb threat following the announcement by Fox News host Bill O'Reilly that he was "taking NPR down" over the Williams firing.

Williams was a writer at the Washington Post from 1976 to 2000, where he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He had been at NPR for a decade, starting off as a host of the daily news and opinion program, "Talk of the Nation," and later as an NPR senior correspondent. Following his outspoken remarks on the Fox News Channel as a paid commentator, and in newspaper opinion pieces, such as saying that first lady Michelle Obama has "got this Stokely Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing going," due to her critical observations about the U.S., NPR changed Williams' title to "senior news analyst" and asked Fox not to identify him as an NPR analyst on the air.

Williams' statement, which led to his termination, was made as part of a round table discussion on "The O'Reilly Factor," regarding Bill O'Reilly's controversial comments on the ABC news/chat show, "The View," where O'Reilly famously stated that "the Muslims really killed us on 9/11," resulting in co-hosts Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg walking off the set (but not before Goldberg said "that is such bullsh*t.") Host Barbara Walters then reprimanded O'Reilly for his comments, calling them "extremist" and he apologized to her on air.

In that context, Williams appeared on Fox two days later, as part of a six-minute segment focusing on O'Reilly's comments -- and the argle-bargle that ensued -- on The View. Williams described what he would later say was a honest experience, which he also clarified with his other statements in the O'Reilly segment that seem to have been lost in the "sound bite" coverage that followed.

On Thursday, October 21, the day after his comments on Fox, Williams was terminated by NPR CEO Schiller, whose management background includes CNN and the New York Times. Schiller cited the NPR ethics guidelines, and in an email to NPR member stations, some of whom were upset about the timing of the termination during pledge week, Schiller wrote: "News analysts may not take personal public positions on controversial issues; doing so undermines their credibility as analysts, and that's what's happened in this situation." "As you all well know," Schiller continued, "we offer views of all kinds on your air every day, but those views are expressed by those we interview -- not our reporters and analysts."

Before it was over, Schiller would remark to a press gathering in Atlanta that Williams should have directed his comments to his "psychiatrist or his publicist or take your pick," setting off alarm bells in the mental heath community. Schiller would later apologize to NPR staff for the way the firing was handled, and to the mental health group NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness) for her mental health comment. But no apologies to Juan Williams.

Truth is, Williams has something better than an "I'm sorry." Fox News signed him, as a free agent, for $2 million over three years, a reported big raise for the feisty Williams, who joins the bench at Fox that includes the Tea Party Dream Team of Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, and now Williams.

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