October 19, 2010
NPR has received a $1.8 million grant from the Open Society Foundations to begin a project called Impact of Government that is intended to add at least 100 journalists at NPR member radio stations in all 50 states over the next three years.
The reporters, editors and analysts will cover state governments and how their actions affect people.
The project “creates capacity for local stations to hire reporters and to cover issues that matter that other places aren’t doing,” said Vivian Schiller, NPR’s president and chief executive. “Everything that we’re doing as relates to member stations comes down to two things: building local news capacity and making sure the content we create is available to all people across all platforms.”
Ms. Schiller said the journalists would not be part of typical statehouse coverage, but instead would work on enterprise journalism that looks at how state government decisions play out over years, and extend beyond a single state’s borders.
The program, one of a number of new public media reporting projects meant to counter some of the cutbacks in profit-making journalism, will begin with an eight-state pilot phase in March 2011. Eventually, NPR and local stations hope to raise about $17 million to expand the program, and $18 million to $19 million annually to sustain it, said Ron Schiller, president of the NPR Foundation and NPR’s senior vice president for development (and no relation to Ms. Schiller.)
The project is also intended to help the public radio network raise more money. Although NPR stations attract millions of small donors, and NPR itself received a $230 million grant from the Joan B. Kroc estate in 2003, NPR and its stations want to attract more major philanthropists, Mr. Schiller said.
Then, Wednesday evening the opening salvo of what is war on Fox News.
NPR has terminated its contract with Juan Williams, one of its senior news analysts, after he made comments about Muslims on the Fox News Channel.
NPR said in a statement that it gave Mr. Williams notice of his termination on Wednesday night.
The move came after Mr. Williams, who is also a Fox News political analyst, appeared on the “The O’Reilly Factor” on Monday. On the show, the host, Bill O’Reilly, asked him to respond to the notion that the United States was facing a “Muslim dilemma.” Mr. O’Reilly said, “The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet.”
Mr. Williams said he concurred with Mr. O’Reilly.
He continued: “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.”
Mr. Williams also made reference to the Pakistani immigrant who pleaded guilty this month to trying to plant a car bomb in Times Square. “He said the war with Muslims, America’s war is just beginning, first drop of blood. I don’t think there’s any way to get away from these facts,” Mr. Williams said.
NPR said in its statement that the remarks “were inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”
NPR is now the mouthpiece of George Soros and they did NOT want to get on his bad side. The comments by Juan Williams were what most of us feel when going on a flight with Muslims in full Muslim garb. They do make us nervous. Of course, it's OK for another reporter to wish Rush Limbaugh death, but for Juan to express his personal concern - you're fired!
Juan: Welcome to the real world. NPR threw you under the bus and you have no idea who was pulling the strings? On thing now apparent, they lead to King George, as in George Soros.
Who can trust NPR now? Only the progressives, their's and Soros's mouthpiece.
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