WASHINGTON (AP) â€" The top executive at America's National Public Radio was fired after another official at the network was caught on a hidden camera saying members of the ultraconservative tea party movement were xenophobic and racist.
It was a fresh blow Wednesday to the network that already was under threat from conservative Republicans who want to cut off its partial government funding as part of their drive to reduce federal spending for many programs ranging from education to help for the poor. The Republicans say they are acting to fulfill a campaign promise to cut deeply into the skyrocketing U.S. budget deficit.
The NPR network is no stranger to conservative attacks. Conservatives tried unsuccessfully to strip away federal money in 2005 and in the 1990s. Republicans charge the network has a liberal political bias. NPR repeatedly has served as a lightning rod in the larger political fight between American liberals and conservatives over a broad range of cultural and social issues.
A federal budget bill for the remainder of this fiscal year that was passed in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives last month would end funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports programs distributed on NPR and television material from the Public Broadcasting System, PBS.
NPR chairman Dave Edwards said removing chief executive Vivian Schiller from her post was difficult. She was fired a day after a conservative activist posted a video on the internet that showed NPR executive Ron Schiller, no relation to the chief executive, making disparaging remarks about tea party Republicans.
Vivian Schiller had only recently weathered a storm of criticism after she ordered the dismissal of Juan Williams, a longtime commentator for the network who also made appearances as a liberal voice on the conservative Fox News television network. He was fired after saying on Fox that he was made uncomfortable when flying if he saw fellow passengers wearing "Muslim garb." He explained that he had meant the observation as an expression of an invalid weakness that he wished he could overcome.
Schiller later said she was sorry for the way she handled Williams' dismissal but stood by her decision to fire him.
On Tuesday, conservative activist James O'Keefe posted a hidden-camera video in which NPR fund-raising executive Ron Schiller bashed the tea party movement and said NPR would be better off without federal money.
O'Keefe, best known for hidden-camera videos that embarrassed the community-organizing group ACORN, posted the NPR video Tuesday on his Web site, Project Veritas. The group said the video was made on Feb. 22.
It shows two activists posing as members of a Muslim group at a lunch meeting with Ron Schiller and another NPR executive, Betsy Liley. The men offer NPR a $5 million donation and engage Schiller in a wide-ranging discussion about tea party Republicans, pro-Israel bias in the media, anti-intellectualism and other topics.
"The current Republican Party is not really the Republican Party. It's been hijacked by this group that is ... not just Islamophobic but, really, xenophobic," Ron Schiller said in the video, referring to the tea party movement. "They believe in sort of white, middle America, gun-toting â€" it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people."
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said in a statement that NPR's executives had "finally admitted that they do not need taxpayer dollars to survive."
Conservative Republican Sens. Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn introduced a separate bill Friday to cut off funding for CPB, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which was created by Congress to distribute money to NPR and PBS.
NPR, which relies heavily on public and foundation donations for its operations, said it was "appalled" by Ron Schiller's comments. Schiller already had told NPR before the video was shot that he was resigning as president of its fundraising arm and a senior vice president for development. He said in a statement Tuesday night that his resignation would be effective immediately.
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