NPR V.P. Resigns, CEO Rebuked Over Williams' Firing

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: NPR

The fallout from NPR's decision to terminate the contract of former news analyst Juan Williams reached the network's highest levels Thursday as its top news executive, Ellen Weiss, resigned.

The announcement of her departure came the same day as the release of the findings of an external review commissioned by the NPR board of directors in the wake of the episode. The NPR board also said it would overhaul the network's ethics and human resources policies.

The report, carried out by the law firm Weil Gotshal & Manges, found the dismissal of Williams to be legal. The report concluded that the network and Weiss, NPR's senior vice president for news, gave Williams adequate notice and broke no element of his contract.

That said, the way in which Weiss dismissed Williams — by phone — became a flashpoint that erupted into a public and political debate.

Read more: http://www.npr.org/2011/01/07/132726894/npr-v-p-resigns-ceo-rebuked-over-williams-firing

[xchrom]

1. who has the Power, baby?!?! nt

[Botany]

2. Williams broke the rules and had been warned many times ...

So he got fired and landed @ Fox News for big bucks ...... This resignation all about trying to make
nice w/ republicans. NPR stopped being NPR a long time ago.

[rurallib]

4. true true true

[robcon]

3. I'm surprised it wasn't the CEO who was fired.

The CEO, Vivian Schiller, said Juan Williams should have kept his feelings about Muslims "between himself and his psychiatrist or his publicist."

Saying that would have been a firing offense for any manager at my company.

[peacetalksforall]

5. What a love-hate thing I have for NPR. Love Keillor, Glass, and soooo many other

personalities and programs .... and hate everything to do with news and news commentary.

Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, Dan Burton - I can still hear them ranting against NPR. They won, NPR morphed from quite neutral to right, perhaps with the pressure of the mega funders.

And now we have Boehner, Bachmann, and Issa to take their place and unfortunately, Bachmann and Issa are young. Can you imagine either of them still in the House until their 90's?