NPR chief Vivian Schiller on Juan Williams firing: ‘We handled the situation badly’

Joe Pompeo
·Media Reporter

Following an earnest National Press Club keynote speech Monday focused on NRP's value and integrity as a journalistic institution, NPR boss Vivian Schiller was asked to address a more controversial matter: the firing last October of veteran news analyst Juan Williams.

"We handled the situation badly," said Schiller, who became chief executive of NPR in 2009. "We acted too hastily and we made some mistakes, and I made some mistakes. The key thing now is to reflect on those mistakes, and to fix some of our systems that fell down on that day and make sure it doesn't happen again."

Schiller came under fire last fall after NPR terminated its contract with Williams over comments he made to Bill O'Reilly of Fox News Channel, where Williams was (and remains) a paid contributor. During that conversation, the veteran liberal commentator admitted to O'Reilly, a conservative cable news anchor, that he gets nervous when flying in the company of Muslims.

The remark was initially blasted by liberals and Islamic groups--but in turn, conservative commentators and media watchers attacked NPR's decision to let Williams go as a severe overreaction. The Williams affair prompted the resignation of NPR executive Ellen Weiss, who showed Williams the door--and sparked a decision from NPR's board to strip Schiller of her 2010 bonus.

At Monday's Press Club event, Schiller said the Williams episode was a breakdown in "personnel processes about who calls who when." She declined to go into specifics, but said those issues have been "fixed." Schiller also said NPR has "undertaken a thorough review" of its news code of ethics, which had not been updated since 2004. One outcome of that process, she said, would be the hiring this spring of a standards editor--a figure who will supplement the work of the network's ombudsman, and act as "another critical check in our process."

Schiller also took the opportunity to push back on a deficit-reducing proposal by Republican lawmakers to eliminate federal funding for public radio and television.

"It is a very significant risk to all of public broadcasting," she said. "For public radio, it on average reprsents 10 percent of station revenues. That average belies the fact that for many public radio stations, [the funding] is a much higher percentage of revenue. We take this very, very seriously. It would have a profound impact on our ability to deliver news and information to the audience."