Reaction to NPR's firing of Juan Williams

The rules of journalism have greatly changed in today's society in the fact that news room's are becoming less objective and are posing opinion as fact. Many people consider what political commentators say as fact rather than recognizing their opinions as opinion as opposed to fact.

This idea was perfectly demonstrated in the recent Juan Williams case. Williams, a news analyst for NPR as well as commentator on Fox News was fired after saying derogatory remarks about muslims. NPR decided to let williams go, since Williams failed to be objective. The real conflict here is that Williams as a journalist failed to acknowledge his duties as a journalist which are outlined in the Society of Professional Journalists code of ethics. Williams not only failed to avoid stereotyping by race, gender, age, religion, ethnicity, geography, sexual orientation,disability, physical appearance or social status, but most importantly he failed to distinguish the point of being able to distinguish between advocacy and news reporting. Analysis and commentary should be labeled and not misrepresent fact or context.

If I was a commentator, I would have not said what Williams said. I believe that everyone has a right to an opinion, but a journalist is always on the job even when they are not in the newsroom or professional setting. You have the obligation to your readers to report the facts, not opinion. In that case, I believe that NPR had total justification to fire Williams under the notion that he failed to be objective as a journalist when he was speaking with Fox news. However, I would have not sent him an e-mail letting him know about this position, this was very tactless. Instead, I would have talked to him in person about the issue.