Murdoch's World (52 page)
Authors: David Folkenflik
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some of those colleagues:
The following paragraphs draw on the author's interviews with Juan Williams and five NPR colleagues.
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Williams seemed at his most empathetic:
Juan Williams, “President Bush, Part 1: The Interview,”
All Things Considered
, January 29, 2007.
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Many listeners . . . believed he had veered:
“Letters: Overplaying Bush,”
All Things Considered
, February 1, 2007.
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Scott Simon occasionally weighed in:
Scott Simon, “Even Pacifists Must Support This War,” op-ed,
Wall Street Journal
, October 11, 2001.
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Williams backed the Bush administration's stance:
Juan Williams, “Don't Mourn
Brown v. Board of Education
,” op-ed,
New York Times
, June 29, 2007.
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NPR turned down the offer:
Howard Kurtz, “NPR Rebuffs White House on Bush Talk,”
Washington Post
, September 25, 2007. Irena Briganti's quotation is also from Kurtz's article.
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an expectation among many of NPR's liberal listeners:
Author's personal experience.
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commentators had raised rumors:
Roger Stone, interview by Geraldo Rivera, Fox News, June 1, 2008; others, such as Bob Beckel, spoke of a “shoe going to drop” involving Michelle Obama explaining why Hillary Clinton stayed in the Democratic primary past the point of mathematical hopes of prevailing.
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“Stokely Carmichael in a designer dress”:
Juan Williams,
O'Reilly Factor
, January 26, 2009.
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“not out of the realm of mainstream political discourse”:
Alicia Shepard, “Juan Williams, NPR, and Fox,” NPR Ombudsman column, February 11, 2009,
NPR.org
.
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NPR had repeatedly asked Fox to stop identifying Williams:
One NPR editor; one NPR public relations staffer; and two Fox News public relations staffers, interview by author.
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He could not believe the angst:
Juan Williams's concerns derived from author's multiple conversations and interviews with Williams.
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NPR executives had their own concerns:
Reservations from NPR leadership derived from author's interviews with multiple NPR executives, political editors, and show editors both before and after his termination by the network.
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On an episode of ABC's Chat show
The View: Bill O'Reilly,
The View
, October 14, 2010.
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received an attaboy from Williams:
Juan Williams,
O'Reilly Factor
, October 18, 2010.
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Weiss terminated Williams's contract early:
David Folkenflik, “NPR Ends Juan Williams's Contract after Muslim Remarks,”
NPR.org
, October 21,
2010; Folkenflik, “NPR Dismisses News Analyst Juan Williams,”
All Things Considered;
stories in ensuing days about the unfolding crisis for the network.
Chapter 10
Page 110
Vivian Schiller, speaking to the Atlanta Press Club:
As reported in David Folkenflik, “Fox News Gives Juan Williams $2 Million Contract,”
Morning Edition
, October 22, 2010.
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Glenn Beck used Williams's termination:
All quotations from Beck, Baier, and other Fox News personalities are taken from footage and transcripts of Fox News programs on the night of October 21, 2010, including
Beck, Special Report, O'Reilly Factor
, and
Hannity
.
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Octavia Nasr was forced out for a tweet:
Keach Hagey, “CNN's Firing of Octavia Nasr Protested,” Politico, July 8, 2010, among others.
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Rick Sanchez also had been dumped by the network:
“Rick Sanchez Fired from CNN,” Huffington Post, October 1, 2010, among others.
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“When is somebody giving his or her opinion?”:
Barbara Walters,
The View
, ABC, October 21, 2010.
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NewsBusters revived comments:
Nina Totenberg,
Inside Washington
, July 8, 1995,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7msrF1V4NeY
; Totenberg, interview by author; David Folkenflik, “Totenberg on Helms Comment: âIt Was a Stupid Remark,'”
NPR.org
, October 26, 2010.
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Jesse Watters . . . confronted Schiller:
Watters,
O'Reilly Factor
, October 25, 2010.
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News Corp had become a participant:
See, for example, Keach Hagey, “Fox Parent's Donation Causes a Stir,” Politico, August 17, 2010; Jim Rutenberg, “With Another $1 Million Donation, Murdoch Expands His Political Sphere,”
New York Times
, October 1, 2010.
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“Roger [Ailes] may not have given the Tea Party life”:
Chris Ruddy, interview by author; Ruddy made similar remarks in Gabriel Sherman, “The Elephant in the Green Room,”
New York Magazine
, May 22, 2011.
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Officials at some NPR member stations:
Author interviews with fifteen member station officials.
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“
will never forgive NPR”:
Chris Wallace, interview by author.
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“Are you kidding me, NPR?”
Jon Stewart,
The Daily Show
, October 25, 2010.
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Murdoch's son-in-law, Matthew Freud:
David Carr and Tim Arango, “A Fox Chief at the Pinnacle of Media and Politics,”
New York Times
, January 10, 2010.
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Roger Ailes shot back that Freud “needs to see a psychiatrist”:
Joe Flint, “Roger Ailes Says He's Not Going Anywhere, and News Corp's Chase Carey Concurs,”
Los Angeles Times
, January 13, 2010.
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Ailes attacked once again:
Howard Kurtz, “Fox News Chief Blasts NPR âNazis,'” Daily Beast, November 17, 2010.
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fit neatly with the extreme rhetoric:
As did others, I catalogued some of Beck's invocations of Nazis in describing the Obama White House and
other liberals in David Folkenflik, “Fox News Nazi Rhetoric Starts at the Top,”
All Things Considered
, November 19, 2010.
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evoked elements of anti-Semitic slurs:
Deborah Lipstadt, interview by author. Subsequent quotations from Lipstadt are derived from that interview.
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Milbank found Beck had referred: Washington Post
columnist Dana Milbank has written extensively about Beck's rhetoric in his book
Tears of a Clown
.
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Ailes ultimately apologized:
Alex Welprin, “Roger Ailes Apologizes to ADL for Calling NPR Officials Nazis,”
TVNewser.com
, November 18, 2010.
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In a subsequent book
,
Muzzled: Juan Williams,
Muzzled
. Quotations drawn from author's interview with Williams. David Folkenflik, “In
Muzzled
, Juan Williams Tells His Side of the Story,”
All Things Considered
, July 27, 2011.
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The record tends to belie his perception:
Williams's previous book
Enough
was featured in a lengthy interview with Steve Inskeep: “Juan Williams on African-American Victimhood,”
Morning Edition
, August 7, 2006.
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Weiss resigned:
David Folkenflik, “NPR V.P. Resigns, CEO Rebuked Over Williams' Firing,”
Morning Edition
, January 7, 2011.
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Schiller was ousted a few months later:
David Folkenflik, “Vivian Schiller, CEO of NPR, Steps Down,”
Morning Edition
, March 9, 2011. The original thirteen-minute excerpt of tapes: Matthew Boyle, “NPR Executives Caught on Tape Bashing Conservatives and Tea Party, Touting Liberals,”
Daily Caller
, March 8, 2011. Glenn Beck's conservative news site, the Blaze, compared the tapes and showed them to be a distortion of how the two-hour lunch had played out: Scott Baker, “Does Raw Video of NPR Expose Reveal Questionable Editing and Tactics?” the Blaze, March 10, 2011. I reviewed the tapes with colleagues and outside experts for an additional analysis for
Morning Edition
that reached the same conclusion: “Key Elements of NPR Gotcha Video Taken Out of Context,”
Morning Edition
, March 14, 2011.
Chapter 11
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“crocked by a ten-year-old”
Clive Goodman, “Black Adder,”
News of the World
, November 6, 2005.
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Mulcaire told a sideline reporter:
Contemporaneous video of Mulcaire's goal and sideline video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8826wD-XLE
; “Glenn Mulcaire: Awful Bloke, Decent Footballer,”
New Statesman
, July 6, 2011.
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the time was right:
Peter Burden, “âNoW' Hacker Had Beans to Spill and a Crust to Earn,”
Independent
, July 19, 2011.
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had adopted a bit of cloak and dagger:
Michael Silverleaf QC, letter to Tom Crone, June 3, 2008, published as attachment JCP 20â26 in written
evidence to House Select Committee on Culture, Media, and Sport inquiry on News International and Hacking (henceforth CMS report).
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a surprisingly easy task:
Author's interview with Mark Stephens, lawyer for multiple targets of cell phone mail hacking.
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police turned up more than 11,000 pages:
James Robinson, “Phone Hacking: Met to Pass Glenn Mulcaire Papers to Litigants,”
Guardian
, June 27, 2011.
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he had done nothing wrong:
“Full Text of Clive Goodman's Letter to News International,”
Independent
, August 16, 2011.
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the first in a pair of payments: News International and Phone-Hacking
, Eleventh Report from House of Commons Committee on Culture, Media, and Sport, April 30, 2012, part 3.
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outside lawyers had done an extensive review:
Les Hinton, testimony before House of Commons Committee on Culture, Media, and Sport, September 15, 2009.
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“We like being pirates”:
As cited in Lloyd Grove, “Rupe's Attack Dog Gets Bitten, Keeps Barking,”
New York Magazine
, September 10, 2007.
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“We're like a pirate ship”:
Senior
Wall Street Journal
news executive, interview by author.
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On the parent corporation's board:
News Corp annual report 2011; News Corp website, section on corporate governance,
www.newscorp.com/corp_gov/bod.html
.
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far from the corridors of power:
Nick Davies, interview by author; this interview formed the basis of Folkenflik, “Guardian Reporter Rocks Murdoch Empire,”
All Things Considered
, July 11, 2011. Subsequent Davies quotes also from author's interviews of Lewis.
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Working in parallel to Nick Davies:
Mark Lewis, interview by author; this interview formed the basis of David Folkenflik, “Lawyer Follows News Corp, Hacking to U.S.,”
All Things Considered
, April 12, 2012. Subsequent Lewis quotations are derived from author's interviews unless otherwise noted.