Left and right unite in free speech row as US radio analyst is sacked

Sarah Palin and Whoopi Goldberg are two of the most outspoken women in America – although they come from very different ends of the political spectrum. It’s hard to imagine anything that the two of them could agree upon. Until now.

The sacking of a veteran contributor from National Public Radio has united the left and right in condemnation of what they see as an attack on American’s first amendment right to free speech.

Juan Williams has been analyzing news and politics on NPR for decades. A station that holds itself to the same standards of unbiased impartiality that we are accustomed to in Britain from our broadcast media. But Williams also frequently appears on the unashamedly right wing Fox News Channel where he often argues with the presenters as he expresses pretty liberal views. Giving his NPR bosses heartburn. And this week they finally had enough.

Controversy
William appeared on the Bill O’Reilly show on Monday night and told him:
“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,” Mr Williams said.

“But when I get on a 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.”

He went on to say that all Muslims should not be branded as extremists. “We don’t want, in America, people to have their rights violated, to be attacked because they hear rhetoric from Bill O’Reilly and they act crazy,” Mr Williams said, and Mr O’Reilly agreed.

Williams was trying to make the point that if someone like him- an African American who prides himself on not falling into racial or religious stereotyping – responds that way to seeing Muslims on a plane then other Americans must feel frightened too. That is a conversation this country needs to have.

American Tension
But the atmosphere in America is very tense right now. The row over the so-called “Ground Zero Mosque” has stirred up dangerous passions that are making it difficult for Americans to talk about something that really needs to be openly discussed

I was in New York over the 9-11 anniversary and I was shocked by some of things I heard about Islam in America. There will always be bigots who will take any excuse to come out and protest against people who don’t look like them. But plenty of other broad minded, liberal Americans told me that they find hearing the Muslim call to prayer “frightening”. Friends who have voted Democrat their whole lives still think that building a mosque within three blocks of Ground Zero is “triumphalism”.

Division
Whoopi Goldberg walked off her own chat show “The View” last week when Bill O’Reilly was talking about why he opposed the Ground Zero mosque. But she is also furious that Juan Williams has been sacked for expressing his opinion. Firing someone for speaking out about America’s latent Islamaphobia doesn’t seem designed to foster free and open debate.

While right wingers like Sarah Palin are delighted to be able to attack a radio station they think is part of the left wing elite. Sarah Palin tweeted: “Juan Williams: u got taste of Left’s hypocrisy, they screwed up firing you.”

NPR say this wasn’t the first time Williams had expressed controversial views on Fox News and so they could no longer use him as an impartial commentator.

NPR CEO Vivian Schiller said that his most recent comments “violated our standards as well as our values and offended many in doing so.”

She also said Williams’ feelings about Muslims should be between him and “his psychiatrist or his publicist”. But she had to apologise for that remark later.

NPR does seem to have shot themselves in the foot with this row.

They now have broad coalition of left and right wingers all calling for the radio station to lose all their federal funding because they are attacking William’s constitutional right to speak out.

While Williams himself has signed a $2m contract with Fox News. He is obviously not a rabid right winger like so many of their presenters. He describes himself as “a liberal black man” and he will be a very interesting addition to the Fox News line up.