AP – FILE- This undated photo
released by SeniorNet shows
NPR news analyst Juan Williams.
NPR News says that …
NPR has fired longtime News analyst Juan Williams, also a commentator on the Fox News Channel, after he told Bill O'Reilly that he gets nervous when he sees people in Muslim garb on an airplane.
In a statement late Wednesday, National Public Radio said it was terminating Williams' contract as a senior news analyst over his comments on Fox's "The O'Reilly Factor."
NPR executives had previously complained about his remarks on Fox and asked him to stop using the NPR name when he appeared on O'Reilly's show.
The latest comments came Monday, when O'Reilly brought on guests to discuss his own appearance last week on ABC's "The View," during which Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg walked off the set to protest his views on Muslims.
Williams went on to say that not everyone in a religious group ----- Christian oe Muslim— should be lumped together with extremists.
Speaking Thursday at the Atlanta Press Club, Schiller also said Williams had veered from journalistic ethics several times before Monday's comments.
A phone message left for Williams at his home in Washington was not immediately returned Thursday morning.
Williams appeared briefly Thursday on Fox News and said he was abruptly fired Wednesday by Ellen Weiss, NPR's vice president for news. He said he told Weiss he meant what he said on the O'Reilly show, but that she told him he had made a bigoted statement and crossed a line.
Williams stood by his remarks Thursday and said his statement was not bigoted.
Before Williams was fired, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said such commentary from a journalist about other racial, ethnic or religious minority groups would not be tolerated.
