Last week, the NPR ombudsman wrote about the comments Juan Williams made about Michelle Obama on the O'Reilly show several weeks ago. Via Ta-Nehisi, Michael Goldfarb sees censorship:
Williams appears frequently on Fox News and is typically identified as "NPR News Political Analyst," which is precisely what his job title at NPR is. Williams is not on staff at NPR, rather he is an independent contractor -- and thus presumably free to sell his services wherever else he pleases. Which raises the question: does NPR even have the right, as a government-funded network, to publicly condemn an independent contractor for the manner in which he describes the First Lady while on his own time?NPR has a very specific standard of ethics set for contributors, including independent contractors, which Goldfarb plainly decided not to read before commenting. As Eric Boehlert has been tirelessly pointing out for weeks, the NPR code of ethics clearly states that it applies to "material provided to NPR by independent producers, member station contributors and/or reporters and freelance reporters, writers, news contributors or photographers." It also states:At the end of a long explanation, complete with bowing and scraping to NPR's liberal listeners and supporters, the ombudsman declares that the network has asked Fox to stop identifying Williams as having an affiliation with NPR when he appears on their network. NPR's Washington editor explains to the ombudsman, "What [Williams] says when he is not on our air is not within our control." So under what logic does NPR believe that it can and should prevent Williams from affiliating himself with NPR when he is not on their air?
In appearing on TV or other media including electronic Web-based forums, NPR journalists should not express views they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist. They should not participate in shows electronic forums, or blogs that encourage punditry and speculation rather than fact-based analysis.
By any standard, NPR is giving Williams a great degree of slack in terms of appearing on shows that "encourage punditry and speculation" or expressing "views they would not air in their role as an NPR journalist." Goldfarb calls this "censorship" because NPR is government owned, but that's ridiculous. NPR isn't saying Williams can't appear on FOX and say whatever outrageous nonsense he wants, they're saying he can't do that, continue to affiliate himself with NPR while violating their code of conduct, and expect to keep his contract. They're actually bending over backward to keep him as a contributor without harming NPR's reputation.
Last time I checked, a right to a contract with NPR isn't in the Constitution. Goldfarb's definition of "censorship" is probably best described as "Palinesque."
-- A. Serwer
