WASHINGTON — The chief executive officer of NPR, Vivian Schiller, has departed following tumult over comments made by a National Public Radio executive about the “tea party.”
NPR made the announcement early Wednesday. “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 public broadcaster said in a statement.
“The Board accepted her resignation with understanding, genuine regret,
and great respect for her leadership of NPR these past two years.”
David Folkenflik, NPR’s media correspondent, reported Schiller was pushed out by the board.
The resignation comes at a dicey time for NPR. On Tuesday, a video featuring former NPR executive Ron Schiller (no relation) came to light. In the video, the work of conservative activist James O’Keefe, Schiller is heard demeaning tea party supporters as racists and “gun-toting” Christian fundamentalists who had “hijacked” the Republican Party. Schiller also said that NPR would be “better off in the long run” without federal support.
Vivian Schiller had already taken significant heat for NPR’s dismissal of commentator Juan Williams
last fall, after Williams confessed to apprehension when seeing Muslims
on airplanes. Williams’ ouster became a cause celebre for conservatives
— and helped spark the O’Keefe project. NPR’s top news executive, Ellen Weiss, resigned in January as a result.
NPR is embroiled in a battle on Capitol Hill with
Republicans who want to eliminate all federal funding for the publicly
supported media network. The Ron Schiller video gave new momentum to
that effort, with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va.,
saying Tuesday that the video “clearly highlights the fact that public
broadcasting doesn’t need taxpayer funding to thrive, and I hope that
admission will lead to a bipartisan consensus to end these unnecessary
federal subsidies.”
The video was part of a “sting” in which two men posed as members of the “Muslim Action Education Center,” a fictitious organization the men claimed had ties to the “Muslim Brotherhood of America.”
On Tuesday, NPR quickly distanced itself
from Ron Schiller’s remarks, saying it was “appalled by the comments
made by Ron Schiller in the video, which are contrary to what NPR stands for.”
NPR also asserted that it had turned down a purported $5-million donation offered by the representatives of the phony Islamic group.
Vivian Schiller joined NPR in January 2009 from the New York Times Co., where she had been vice president and general manager of nytimes.com.
Ron Schiller, who had already accepted a job with the Aspen Institute before the controversy mushroomed, resigned Tuesday night.
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