Yesterday, outgoing NPR executive Ron Schiller resigned after conservative gadfly James O'Keefe released one of his hidden camera exposes, this one documenting Schiller calling the "tea party people" not "just Islamophobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people." Of course, you're not allowed to point out the obvious in certain situations, so NPR apologized and forced the guy out early. And now NPR's CEO, Vivian Schiller (no relation), has also resigned over the incident of candid truth-telling.
"The Board accepted her resignation with understanding, genuine regret, and great respect for her leadership of NPR these past two years," said Board of Directors Chairman Dave Edwards in a statement. The kerfuffle comes at a bad time for NPR; Republicans are trying once again to cut funding for the news organization, and the video records Schiller saying what many NPR executives have said privately, that NPR "would be better off in the long run without federal funding." House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said yesterday, "This disturbing video makes it clear that taxpayer dollars should no longer be appropriated to NPR."
Ron Schiller did not work on the news side, but he was the head of fundraising for the NPR foundation, and the remarks were made at a meeting in which O'Keefe and an associate were posing as members of a fictitious Muslim organization that wanted to give $5 million to NPR. At the meeting, Schiller and Betsy Liley, NPR senior director of institutional giving, did not indicate that they would accept O'Keefe's bogus $5 million (the impostors claimed their group had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood). But comments like "liberals today might be more educated, fair and balanced than conservatives" don't exactly help NPR counter its image as a biased, left-leaning news organization.
PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting received nearly $450 million in federal funding last year, but only about 2 percent, or $2.4 million, of NPR's funding comes from federally funded organizations, ABC News reports. According to the Washington Post, NPR's member stations, which pay programming fees to NPR, rely on federal funds for a much larger share of their operating budgets, about 15 percent on average.
