NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Resigns Over James O’Keefe Video

Fuck yeah! I was just going to post this!

NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Resigns After Hidden Camera Sting Snares Top Fundraiser
Sting Costs CEO Vivian Schiller Job Amid Renewed Calls Against Public Funding


By HUMA KHAN and Z. BYRON WOLF
March 9, 2011

The embattled CEO of National Public Radio resigned today after the top fundraiser for NPR said offensive things about Republicans and the Tea Party during an undercover sting orchestrated by conservative activist James O'Keefe.

Vivian Schiller, the ousted CEO, had also been criticized for NPR's firing of commentator Juan Williams last October.

But the controversial comments of Ron Schiller, NPR's top fundraiser, during what he thought was a lunch with potential donors from a Muslim-affiliated trust cost Vivian Schiller her job. Vivian and Ron Schiller are not related. (Yeah right, they are both )

"The Board accepted Vivian's resignation with understanding, genuine regret and great respect for her leadership of NPR these past two years," said NPR Board Chairman Dave Edwards in a written statement. NPR broke into its "Morning Edition" program so that its media correspondent David Folkenflik could report the news.

The sting of Ron Schiller was a secretly recorded lunch at a Georgetown restaurant. In edited video released by O'Keefe on his Project Veritas website, Ron Schiller is seen calling the Tea Party the "xenophobic" and "seriously racist people" who are "fanatically involved in people's personal lives."

The controversy comes at a delicate time for Public Broadcasting, including PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which got a nearly $450 million in federal funding last year. President Obama proposed raising that amount to $451 million. But with the federal government facing severe budget deficits, Tea Party groups and some Republicans on Capitol Hill seized the opportunity to advocate for cutting all federal funding to NPR.

NPR's Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs, Joyce Slocum, will take over as interim CEO.

Ron Schiller, who was already scheduled to leave NPR in May, instead left Tuesday. He apologized for the comments blasting Republicans and the Tea Party

"While the meeting I participated in turned out to be a ruse, I made statements during the course of the meeting that are counter to NPR's values and also not reflective of my own beliefs," he said in a statement Tuesday. "I offer my sincere apology to those I offended."

Ron Schiller was accompanied at the recorded lunch by Betsy Liley, NPR senior director of institutional giving, with members of the "Muslim Education Action Center," a fake group set up specifically to target NPR. They had promised NPR a $5 million donation. The two members who met with Schiller and Liley established a purported connection with the Muslim Brotherhood early on in the lunch.

Even before the undercover video was released, NPR declined to accept the check from the fictitious group.

The setup was the brainchild of O'Keefe, a conservative activist who has become famous for his hidden-camera videos, most recently targeted at the Census bureau.

NPR swiftly condemned Ron Schiller's comments on Tuesday.

"The comments contained in the video released today are contrary to everything we stand for, and we completely disavow the views expressed," NPR spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm said in a statement. "NPR is fair and open minded about the people we cover. Our reporting reflects those values every single day -- in the civility of our programming, the range of opinions we reflect and the diversity of stories we tell."

Watch the video here.

"Mr. Schiller's latest comments provoke a larger question: How long will we as a nation be willing to tolerate the arrogance of the self-appointed ruling elite?" said Jenny Beth Martin, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots. "His unedited comments are indicative of the mentality of ruling elites who are threatened by the power of the Tea Party Patriots."

House Republicans voted last month to cut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which partially supports NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service. That legislation is unlikely to pass the Senate.

Ron Schiller is seen in the video saying that NPR would be better off without federal funding, and even if it were to be stripped, the organization and most of its member stations would survive.

But NPR countered that claim on Tuesday, saying that such a move would be significantly damaging.

"The assertion that NPR and public radio stations would be better off without federal funding does not reflect reality," said Dana Davis Rehm, NPR's senior vice president of marketing, communications and external relations. "The elimination of federal funding would significantly damage public broadcasting as a whole."

The House Republicans' budget would rescind any funding for CPB for the remainder of the year, and zero out millions in funds after that.

House majority leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., on Tuesday used the video to advance the Republicans' argument that federal funding be pulled from NPR.

"This disturbing video makes clear that taxpayer dollars should no longer be appropriated to NPR," Cantor said in a statement. "Not only have top public broadcasting executives finally admitted that they do not need taxpayer dollars to survive, it is also clear that without federal funds, public broadcasting stations self-admittedly would become eligible for more private dollars on top of the multi-million dollar donations these organizations already receive."

House GOP leaders have for years attempted to cut funding for what many of them see as a liberal-leaning broadcast operation. One of Newt Gingrich's first acts as speaker of the House in 1995 was to call for the elimination of federal funding for CPB, and for the privatization of public broadcasting. Neither attempt was successful.

More recently, House Republicans made a proposal in November to strip federal funding for NPR after the radio station fired controversial commentator Juan Williams for comments he made about Muslims.

Only about 2 percent of NPR's funding comes from federally funded organizations, while 40 percent of the revenue is generated through station programming fees and 26 percent through sponsorships.

Individual NPR stations, as opposed to the network, rely more heavily on federal and state grants. CPB funding makes up 10 percent of funding; federal, state and local government funding constitutes about 6 percent of a station's revenue source while 32 percent comes from individuals and 21 percent from businesses.

Vivian Schiller is a Jew and an Israel firster.

Vivian Schiller is a Jew and an Israel firster.

good stuff, eh?

You can't make this shit up.