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NPR hosts, journalists ‘appalled’ by Ron Schiller’s comments

avatar by Published Mar. 10, 2011 4:00 pm Updated Mar. 10, 2011 6:28 pm

Romenesko Misc.
In a letter to NPR listeners and supporters, NPR employees say the comments by former fundraising exec Ron Schiller “have done real damage to NPR. But we’re confident that the culture of professionalism we have built, and the journalistic values we have upheld for the past four decades, will prevail.” The full note is after the jump.

An Open Letter from Journalists at NPR News…..

Dear Listeners and Supporters,

We, and our colleagues at NPR News, strive every day to bring you the highest quality news programs possible. So, like you, we were appalled by the offensive comments made recently by NPR’s now former Senior Vice President for Development. His words violated the basic principles by which we live and work: accuracy and open-mindedness, fairness and respect.

Those comments have done real damage to NPR. But we’re confident that the culture of professionalism we have built, and the journalistic values we have upheld for the past four decades, will prevail. We are determined to continue bringing you the daily journalism that you’ve come to expect and rely upon: fair, fact-based, in-depth reporting from at home and around the world.

With your support we have no doubt NPR will come out of this difficult period stronger than ever.

Thank you,

Robert Siegel

Michele Norris

Melissa Block

Renee Montagne

Scott Simon

Liane Hansen

Guy Raz

Michel Martin

Neal Conan

Susan Stamberg

Nina Totenberg

Linda Wertheimer

Daniel Zwerdling

John Ydstie

Richard Harris

Tom Gjelten

Howard Berkes

Mike Shuster

Laura Sullivan

Lynn Neary

Jacki Lyden

Mara Liasson
Cokie Roberts

———

Why no mention of ex-CEO Vivian Schiller? Daniel Zwerdling responds to my inquiry:

We’re not trying to weigh in on management, in terms of which executive should or shouldn’t hold this or that position. We do want to weigh in on what one executive, Ron Schiller, said: we’re appalled by it. And we want to remind folks that NPR is not about management coming and going, but about the terrific journalism the staff produces every day .

We have made it easy to comment on posts, however we require civility and encourage full names to that end (first initial, last name is OK). Please read our guidelines here before commenting.

  • Grump Demo

    The letter is a honor roll of cowardice.

    It’s just typical the behavior the type of “journalist” that work at NPR, they don’t call water-boarding torture to protect W they won’t stand up to a discredited unethical punk like O’Keefe.

    http://yellowdogshateelephants.blogspot.com/2009/06/nprs-global-war-on-nouns.html

  • Grump Demo

    You’re appalled by readers and supporters stating the truth?

    How long have you worked for FOX?

  • Grump Demo

    How does someone’s that cluesless, Mr. Van der Leun, buy a clue.

    On it’s good days the NPR news shows are the “The Washington Post” broadcast (Center Right, Pro-war, Pro-Corporate, and sycophantically Pro-GOP) and it’s bad days (See any Scott “The Bloody Quaker” Simon’s comments, it just FOX light. At one time NPR had three FOX News employees on it staff: Williams, Liarsome, and Simon. Sure sounds like a Leftist organization to me.

  • Grump Demo

    How does someone’s that cluesless, Mr. Van der Leun, buy a clue.

    On it’s good days the NPR news shows are the “The Washington Post” broadcast (Center Right, Pro-war, Pro-Corporate, and sycophantically Pro-GOP) and it’s bad days (See any Scott “The Bloody Quaker” Simon’s comments, it just FOX light. At one time NPR had three FOX News employees on it staff: Williams, Liarsome, and Simon. Sure sounds like a Leftist organization to me.

  • Anonymous

    What is most appalling is reader NPR supporters writing that NPR/Mr. Schiller did nothing wrong? With it’s federal funding you can believe Rep. Issa is going to have a heyday.

  • Anonymous

    You consider more that $400 million “hardly any money?” In what universe do you live?

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_23AR76X6NUYX764T63O73SIXZQ None

    It’s beyond just defunding NPR now. The new full length uninterrupted audio that was released yesterday is screaming AUDIT and FBI and CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATIONS

  • Pingback: This Week in Review: NPR at a crossroads, hyperlocal’s personal issue, and keeping comments real » Nieman Journalism Lab » Pushing to the Future of Journalism

  • http://twitter.com/Joshuapundit Rob Miller

    Oh, please. ‘Journalists’? This has been going on for a long time, they couldn’t have not known about it and they’re only sorry they got caught. Among other things, this amounts to money laundering..and it would be very interesting to know who else has been buying favorable coverage this way.

    I have no objection to this Leftist propaganda front continuing – but not on my dime. Let them compete in the market place of ideas.

  • http://rightnetwork.com Van der Leun

    I’d buy you a clue Cincy, but I’ve saving up 26 cents to donate to NPR

  • http://rightnetwork.com Van der Leun

    ” the daily journalism that you’ve come to expect and rely upon: fair, fact-based, in-depth reporting from at home and around the world.” Yeah, right. Sure. Isn’t it pretty to think so?

  • Anonymous

    These comments need more extremely poorly informed but very self-assured douchebags. Great ‘story’ Jim!

  • Tobias2012

    “Last week, two Republican senators introduced another bill to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. President Barack Obama had set aside $451 million for public media in his proposed budget for fiscal year 2012.”

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/07/npr-funding-budget-cuts-public-plea_n_832384.html

    Even sourced a lefty site for you.

    NPR does not need nor deserve $451 million from this country’s so-called budget plans.

  • http://twitter.com/diondrum Dion

    Notice that the letter is addressed to listeners and supporters. It obviously didn’t occur to the smug leftist hipsters at NPR that the US taxpayer is an involuntary supporter, otherwise they would have been more apologetic. But, they are leftists and feel entitled to your money and their superiority.

    Ron Schiller’s comments were bad enough, but NPR then chose to lie about whether they planned to accept money from what they thought was a Muslim Brotherhood organization. NPR’s lie is an empirical fact recorded on video and in email exchanges. Ironically enough, they were exposed by the kind of journalism they haven’t bothered with in decades.

    One other well-documented fact is that Nina Totenberg is no journalist. A quick check of her Youtube videos is proof of that. She is a shill for leftist causes who purports to be a journalist. She is a propagandist.

    NPR’s reputation is shot. Or, to be more accurate, their reputation for malfeasance (remember Juan Williams?) has once again been exposed.

  • http://twitter.com/Trochilus Trochilus

    Huh? He was a senior executive at the organization! Their top fund raiser. How can you not hold him to the highest standards? And by the way, what about Betsy “That’s good, I like that!” Liley? She’s NPR’s Director of Institutional Giving (now on administrative leave” and she thinks it’s perfectly okay to tell those who she thinks are likely terrorist-affiliated donors that there is a way to anonymously hide their huge donation to NPR?

    If it’s such a pittance, as you say, then the gaggfle of lefties over there will not miss it. What’s YOUR beef?

  • http://twitter.com/mjkobb Michael Kobb

    I read the transcript of Schiller’s remarks, or as much of it as I was able to find. I don’t see much in there that I would disagree with. He seems to be saying very clearly that there is a fringe, far-right element in the Republican Party that seems to have undue influence — that is taking positions that don’t reflect the views of most mainstream Republicans. As far as I can tell, polling results have repeatedly shown that to be the case.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=504633504 Dan Mitchell

    Maybe you’re trying to make some kind of point that I don’t get, but none of those people work for NPR.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_PPGQWBO45P46UWJMLSXJ5VIP2Q matt

    NPR hardly gets any money from the government, it’s idiots like you that keep that alive. Local stations get the money and if you don’t like what they do with that money then you have every right to complain.

  • http://twitter.com/DavidWilton David Wilton

    I say let NPR lose all its federal funding. As a LEFTIST! I think NPR should do what it’s already doing: embrace its corporate backers and stop the begging breaks. In short, be more honest about who and what it is.

  • Anonymous

    What about Sylvia Pajolle!

  • http://twitter.com/CincyCapell Cincy Capell

    What’s the point of defending NPR when these weenies continually collapse at the slightest pressure from right wingers? They won’t defend themselves, and they’re so afraid of republicans that they walk on egg shells to avoid offending them, and it’s affected their reporting. NPR played cheerleader in the run up to Iraq, they also conspicuously refused to use the word ‘torture’ to describe the torture inflicted on American prisoners, and ordered by the highest ranks of the Bush administration. NPR’s reporting is also the very height of Villager Common Wisdom, it’s filled with inside the beltway wankers, and they ALWAYS get the opinion of some wanker from right wing think tanks, but seldom seek opinions from actual liberals (it’s always one extreme right wing opinion balanced by one center right opinion). NPR has also been infected by the plague of so-called “balanced” journalism, wherein they won’t call out the blatant lies of right wing media (they’re scared to death by them), but rather they put on two assholes and let them each uncritically spin their side of the story, and then let the listener decide who is right and who is lying. To h*ll with NPR.

  • http://americanelephant.wordpress.com/ American Elephant

    And by the way, nobody but leftists and the leftists at NPR believe NPR is anything but leftist.

    Pay your own way!

  • http://americanelephant.wordpress.com/ American Elephant

    Please explain why you cant find private funding? Is your content so horrible?

    If you are providing news, the government has no business funding and thus compromising, ala PRAVDA, the news. And if you are providing opinion, the government has no business funding and thus sanctioning some opinions but not others.

    Your days sponging off taxpayers are over!

  • Tobias2012

    Hey NPR its’ to late… the only reason they are apologizing is that they are afraid they could loose taxpayer funding. NO taxpayer monies for the leftists at NPR!

  • http://113tidbits.com tonyknuckles

    Too bad, the cat’s out of the bag and you can’t pull it back in. Down goes npr’s federal funds.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Samoht-Sartaig/1677860351 Samoht Sartaig

    No “Verna Avery Brown”? No “Lister Hewan Lowe”? Not even a lousy “Amy Goodman”? I’m shocked!

  • http://twitter.com/jmproffitt jmproffitt

    I thought Ron Schiller’s comments were a little obnoxious and careless, but not appalling. And he’s not a reporter anyway. If a cashier at Walmart makes an ignorant comment, do I assume the entire Walmart corporation is populated with morons?

    Maybe these self-congratulating reporters should report on the despicable actions of the organizations that seek to destroy what NPR stands for rather than write posturing memos to Faux News viewers that won’t believe their posturing anyway.

  • Anonymous

    Ron Schiller is not a journalist, so I don’t hold him to the high standard I do say a Scott Simon. I don’t think he said anything wrong, it’s just the Right wanting to take away the pittance public broadcasting gets in government money.