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well, cimmaron, the question of how npr proceeded is different from that of whether they had grounds to do it. and i think the apology for the how that was issued a day or two after the firing covers that, yes? i mean i never enjoyed williams' work on npr---he annoyed me in the way cokie roberts did when she waxed conservative, but was always far less informed than cokie roberts---but had i been in charge of things at npr, i wouldn't have fired him on the phone.
but i likely would have pulled the trigger earlier because i think that taking gigs on fox news is a priori a violation of journalistic ethics---at least on the talking head shows like o-reilly. the shouting class. all that.
as far as public funding of something like npr---i think we'd be a whole lot better off as a society if the airwaves had remained really public and the corporate sector not been allowed to own media outlets at all. in the real world, this need not at all mean "state control of information"---information can be freer without the corporate sector. think the united states for an example of how private sector ownership of information outlets can be a very very bad thing. so i think it'd be crazy to privatize npr.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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