An Honest Remark

National Public Radio recently terminated the contract of longtime news analyst Juan Williams for his remarks on The O’Reilly Factor that, according to NPR, “undermined his credibility as a news analyst.” After asserting that he is a proponent of civil rights, Williams said, “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.” Despite his provocative statements, Williams should not have been fired—he was well within his rights to express his personal opinion when he was speaking outside his home news organization. It is impractical to claim that news reporting is independent of bias, and, in this case, it seems that Williams’ remarks were viewed as a problem particularly because they seemed to stand contrary to NPR’s own editorial views. News organizations must realize that every employee harbors personal beliefs.

In making these remarks, Williams seemed to be admitting a personal emotional reaction rather than a conscious intolerance toward Muslims, although we see how viewers and listeners could easily have interpreted his comments as being bigoted. Instead, his statements further highlight the uncontrollable emotional response that many individuals feel despite their intellectual stance on certain issues. As Williams’ comments suggest, unfortunately, people’s conscious views do not always influence their unconscious attitudes. In this light, we do not believe that Williams’ comments were necessarily bigoted or intended as such; rather, they were an honest admission about his own rote reactions.

NPR’s immediate decision to fire Williams is an inappropriately strong reaction to the situation and to the interpretation that his remarks were directly targeted toward Muslims. The media’s hypersensitivity to issues of race and religion likely influenced NPR’s assessment of the situation and its ultimate conclusion, however poor the decision. In this sense, firing Williams was a form of instantly satisfying those who would exhibit a similarly sensitive reaction.

This, in fact, could easily have been another factor in NPR’s decision—that the organization could have lost listeners who interpreted Williams’ comments to be prejudiced. Ultimately, NPR’s potential loss of patronage may have mattered more to the organization than keeping Williams employed as a testament to its journalistic integrity and discretion. As a business, it is within NPR’s interest to retain as many listeners as possible, but that is not worth sacrificing its contributors’ right to free speech.

This is not to say, however, that there are no bigoted remarks against Muslims being made on air or in the media today. But labeling all statements as such is ineffective when there are many more unambiguously offensive statements to be countered. A statement that warrants such attention, for example, could likely be written off as one of the many that are undeservedly brought to the national spotlight, and remarks that are truly bigoted could thus go unaddressed.

In addition, the media’s association of Williams’ remarks with those that Bill O’Reilly made on The View only adds to the false belief that Williams’ statements were as intolerant as O’Reilly’s. In justifying an opinion poll he cited where 70 percent of respondents opposed the construction of Park51, a Muslim community center located two blocks from Ground Zero, O’Reilly caused the show’s co-hosts to walk off the set by saying, “Muslims killed us on 9/11.” O’Reilly’s comments were inexcusable, unlike Williams’, and a comparison between the two is unfair and inaccurate.

In firing Williams, NPR has silenced someone who was, in fact, implicitly encouraging others to fight their initial fears about Muslims and to refrain from jumping to conclusions about people of any faith. NPR should have carefully considered the true intent of Williams’ words before quickly assuming that any sensitive comment about Muslims must necessarily result in termination.