On Fox News this past week, Juan Williams didn’t say anything unusual; many Americans feel the same way. The only difference is that Williams made his statement on national television and, in the current atmosphere of political correctness, it cost him his job.
But now we also know that this is just part of the story. It appears that NPR came under pressure from a Muslim hate group with ties to Hamas: the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR). And this is not the first time that NPR has done CAIR’s bidding.
In the September 26 2001, article entitled, “Despite Terror Attacks, NPR maintains blacklist of Leading Terror expert” written by the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) they state that Big Peace contributor Steven Emerson, expert on terrorism and Islamic extremism is that since 1998 publicly funded National Public Radio has blacklisted Mr. Emerson. Ironically enough, NPR’s ban came to light just after US cruise missile strikes against Osama bin Laden’s organization, which had been implicated in suicide bomb attacks on US embassies in Africa.
Covering the strike, NPR’s Talk of the Nation program on August 20, 1998 briefly interviewed Emerson, spurring an immediate and furious reaction from CAIR and its followers. One of those followers, Chicago-based activist and Obama confidant Ali Abunimah (of the website Electronic Intifada), had, after a previous Emerson appearance on NPR, received assurances that Mr. Emerson would be banned from the network.
As NPR’s Michael Fields put it, Emerson’s appearance had been a “mistake” and “it won’t happen again.” When, on August 20 Emerson did again appear, Abunimah e-mailed NPR producer Ellen Silva, stating that he was:
shocked and disappointed that TOTN had Steven Emerson on its call in show today as a guest. Mr. Emerson is a well-documented anti-Arab, anti-Muslim racist. … Last time, I accepted the explanation that it had been an innocent error. But how many errors can be innocent? This is a very serious matter and will require an appropriate response…. We will be listening very carefully, and pursuing this matter further. Ali Abunimah.
The next day Ms. Silva sent the following servile reply:
thank you for your letter. our executive producer was in charge of that decision…not me… i take your point and extend an apology to you from the staff of totn. please take care, -ellen
When Abunimah objected that an apology was not enough, NPR’s Silva did not disappoint the pro-Arab activist, assuring him:
… you have my promise he [Emerson] won’t be used again. it is npr policy.
After this correspondence came to light, senior NPR official Jeffrey Dvorkin (now the network’s ombudsman) insisted that Silva misspoke, and that:
… there never was and never will be a policy of banning or blacklisting at NPR… Mr. Emerson is not “banned”, and in fact we anticipate that he will be on NPR again at an appropriate time.
The “appropriate time” apparently has yet to arrive, for, even now, after Emerson’s warnings have come true, and we have seen thousands of Americans killed by Islamic-extremists, NPR’s defacto blacklist is still in effect. In the last few days Emerson has been interviewed by CBS, Fox News, MSNBC and many other media outlets, but not NPR, depriving the publicly-funded network’s listeners of his unique insights into the grave problems that our nation must now confront.
Portions of this article appeared originally at The Hayride.
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