I’ve written a lot about NPR, which has persistently displayed an anti-Israel and pro-Arab bias in its reporting about the Middle East.
Of course they are not required to disclose their donors, so it’s hard to accuse them of being whores. But thanks to James O’Keefe, the conservative activist that embarrassed Acorn by impersonating a pimp with his prostitute, we can actually see the transaction taking place.
In O’Keefe’s video we see Ron Schiller, former President of the NPR Foundation and Senior Vice President, Development — that is, top fund-raiser — saying things that we always knew they thought but that they usually don’t dare say out loud.
Schiller let it hang out after a pair of actors pretending to be members of a fake Muslim-Brotherhood-linked organization offered to contribute $5 million to NPR.
In the video below, you can watch Schiller nod in agreement as ‘Ibrahim Kassam’, one of the ‘Muslims’, expresses his appreciation for NPR’s giving voice to the Hamas and Hizballah point of view rather than that of Israel (at about 3:20), and nods again (about 7:20) when his interlocutor talks about Jews controlling the media. At about 7:45 he laughs a bit when he’s told that they have a “sort of a joke” calling NPR “National Palestinian Radio” because of the favorable coverage. His associate Betsy Liley, Senior Director, Institutional Giving, laughs loudly, saying “that’s good, I like that.”
Schiller nods yet again when ‘Ibrahim’ says that he’s “not too upset about a little less Jewish influence, Jewish money into NPR, but, uh, the Zionist influence is quite substantial elsewhere…” Schiller responds (8:16)
I don’t actually find it at NPR…the Zionist or pro-Israel, even among funders. I mean it’s there among those who own newspapers, obviously, but nobody owns NPR.
‘Ibrahim’ says “what Israel does, I don’t think can be excused,” and Schiller nods again. I’m surprised his head doesn’t come loose. Is he worried that someone is wearing a wire?
There is plenty more. Schiller says that it was absolutely right to fire Juan Williams (see here and also here) after he said that Muslims on airplanes made him nervous. The Republican party has been hijacked by uneducated, xenophobic racists, he says. Most Americans are stupid, he suggests.
Watch the supercilious snob make a fool of himself:
Schiller (apparently no relation to NPR CEO Vivian Schiller) no longer works for NPR. And they positively launched him under the bus:
In response, Dana Davis Rehm, NPR’s senior vice president of marketing, communications and external relations, said the organization is “appalled by the comments made by Ron Schiller in the video, which are contrary to what NPR stands for.”
Schiller had already announced plans to leave NPR prior to the controversy [that is, prior to its breaking in the media — ed.]. Rehm also said that the phony Islamic organization tried to press NPR “to accept a $5-million check, with no strings attached, which we repeatedly refused to accept.” — LA Times
Technorati Tags: NPR, James O’Keefe, Ron Schiller
The CEO of NPR Vivian Schiller has just resigned. Will this mean some kind of return to balance and sanity at NPR? I doubt it. It will apparently mean however greater momentary scrutiny by Congress of NPR. Whether this will change anything is too questionable.