WASHINGTON (AP) — NPR’s chief executive is defending the firing of news analyst Juan Williams after his comments on the Fox News Channel about Muslims and says Williams veered from journalistic ethics several times before.
Williams told Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly he gets nervous when he sees people in Muslim garb on an airplane. NPR CEO Vivian Schiller said Thursday at the Atlanta Press Club that controversial opinions should not come from NPR reporters or news analysts.
Schiller also said whatever feelings Williams has about Muslims should be between him and “his psychiatrist or his publicist.”
NPR executives had previously complained about his remarks on Fox and asked him to stop using the NPR name when he appeared on O’Reilly’s show.
