The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
NPR President and CEO Vivian Schiller has resigned, NPR just announced.
This follows yesterday's news that then-NPR fundraiser Ron Schiller (no relation) was videotaped slamming conservatives and questioning whether NPR needs federal funding during a lunch with men posing as members of a Muslim organization (they were working with political activist James O'Keefe on a "sting.")
Vivian Schiller quickly condemned Ron Schiller's comments, and he moved up an already-announced decision to leave NPR and resigned effective immediately. But Ron Schiller's gaffe followed last fall's dismissal of NPR political analyst Juan Williams, for which Vivian Schiller came under harsh criticism and NPR's top news executive, Ellen Weiss, resigned.
Update at 11:15 a.m. ET: On the issue of whether Vivian Schiller resigned or was forced out, NPR Board Chairman Dave Edwards just told reporters that:
"The board had a wide-ranging conversation with Vivian last night," about recent events and "how the organization needed to move forward."
Schiller, he said, told the board members that they should have "the flexibility to do what [they] felt was important." She "offered to step aside if that was the board's will," he said, "and the board ultimately decided that was in the best interest of the organization."
Note to anyone else left at NPR with the last name of Schiller: lay low and get a name change asap.
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Oct '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
The last high-profile person NPR fired is now at Fox News. It seems unlikely in this case.
Jun '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
That's the danger of living in a leftwing bubble. You forget to wear your moderate mask when you go outside.
May '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
The only element missing now is a "Yakety Sax" soundtrack.
Jun '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
"That's the danger of living in a leftwing bubble. You forget to wear your moderate mask when you go outside."
Ha ha ha !!!!
Dec '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
She looks pretty pissed off in the photo. I guess it's true that a picture tells a 1,000 words.
Dec '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
So when are they going to appoint Juan Williams the new CEO of NPR?
Oct '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
This resignation a day after the sting, with its seeming admittance of guilt and cleaning house, must have been a wrenching decision for the the NPR board. I think they must've weighed the two courses:
a. Maintaining the false facade of Neutrality.
b. "We might've been a smidgen left, but we're correcting that. See! Bad people terminated...Can we keep our funding now?"
Edited on Mar 9, 2011 at 9:45amMay '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
Let them compete in the capitalist system like the rest of us. Perhaps they can charge members...the price of a vegan salad at Elaine's?
May '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
Severely has it nailed. This is an attempt to placate House Republicans and show them that NPR can adapt to the new political reality. Not long after the GOP takeover in 1995 PBS quickly announced that the next film in "The Presidents" series for The American Experience would be Ronald Reagan.
It should not work. We've got to stop accepting the occasional bone thrown our way. At one point, as newspapers shuttered and broadcast stations combined operations, private media companies shed jobs at three times the rate of the general economy. PBS and NPR should not be immune from market forces.
Oct '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
I just saw this on The Daily Caller;
UPDATE: Vivian Schiller tells The New York Times’ Brian Stelter she hopes her “departure from NPR will have the intended effect of easing the defunding pressure on public broadcasting.”
I never thought they'd openly admit this was their intention.
May '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
Man, she's been tossing employees off the sleigh for months trying to fend off the winter wolves. Alas (!) they caught up to her. Two Schillers in one week has to be an NPR record.
Doubt it'll help them much. But it does reveal that their claims of "we only get 2% of our money from the gummint" is a load of hooey. It's a struggle for survival, not 2%.
We'll still have our Car Talk, and classical music. We have a separate classical station in Chattanooga, TN, thankyouverymuch, while the NPR station plays a bunch of Scandi club junk. And for the parents out there, Sesame Street is a viable commercial enterprise if ever there was. Also BBC America.
But the Government Channel may be headed for the exits.
Dec '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
Severely Ltd.:
UPDATE: Vivian Schiller tells The New York Times’ Brian Stelter she hopes her “departure from NPR will have the intended effect of easing the defunding pressure on public broadcasting.”
I never thought they'd openly admit this was their intention.
Vivian is portraying herself as gallantly falling on her sword for the collective. It's not their fault. It's her fault.
Of course, rumor has it O'Keefe has more tapes and some may shine an unpleasant light on her.
But that's beside the point. She is selflessly offering herself up in sacrifice to save a noble endeavor. Just after her chat on the phone with George Soros who informed her about her next lucrative assignment in the service of the cause.
May '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
Also, oddly, the local independent classical station plays cowboy poetry every Sunday at 6 pip emma. I'm gonna have to have a "wide-ranging discussion" with them about that.
Because one thing that unites Ricocheteers of all stripes is contempt for Cowboy Poetry.
Nov '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
It's not often you get two Schillers with one stone.
May '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
Schiller is the German word "to squint." It's a family trait.
Aug '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
Who will they get to Schill for NPR now?
Mar '11
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
I keep trying to find a language where the acronym NPR equates to "Air America"....
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
This is so weird. What an odd meta-reality those people live in. As if we think firing The Schillers settles the matter. What cowards! They should just come right out and admit who they are, what they believe, rather than this contortionist act.
I mean, if they fired everyone at NPR who thinks (and talks) the way Schiller does, we wouldn't need to defund it. There would be nobody there.
Oct '10
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
The first-fired-Schiller says on the tape that it would be better if NPR operated without the government funding, implying (I think) that they could dispense with placating the right and get on with the Progressive agenda. If NPR did drop all pretense of objectivity and shift further to the left, becoming, as Rickenbacker_Playr suggests, another Air America, would they suffer the same fate?
Feb '11
Re: The Plot Thickens: NPR CEO Vivian Schiller Ousted
NPR said: "It is with deep regret that I tell you that the NPR Board of Directors has accepted the resignation of Vivian Schiller as President and CEO of NPR, effective immediately. The Board accepted her resignation with understanding, genuine regret, and great respect for her leadership of NPR these past two years"
A big part of a CEO's job has to do with an organization's culture. The culture at NPR under Schiller has clearly been one in which most Americans are held in such contempt that even sworn enemies of western civilization seem preferable. This seems to me to be very close to Collaboration, in the WWII sense of the term.
The Board's "respect" for Schiller's leadership demonstrates, as if we didn't already know, that they are complicit in this culture. It is probably impossible to fix NPR, and there is no pressing national need to do so. Defund it.