Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Why Didn't We See This NPR Hidden Camera Interview on 60 Minutes?

From the Daily Caller (ht Drudge):
A man who appears to be a National Public Radio senior executive, Ron Schiller, has been captured on camera savaging conservatives and the Tea Party movement.

“The current Republican Party, particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved in people’s personal lives and very fundamental Christian – I wouldn’t even call it Christian. It’s this weird evangelical kind of move,” declared Schiller, the head of NPR’s nonprofit foundation, who last week announced his departure for the Aspen Institute.

In a new video released Tuesday morning by conservative filmmaker James O’Keefe, Schiller and Betsy Liley, NPR’s director of institutional giving, are seen meeting with two men who, unbeknownst to the NPR executives, are posing as members of a Muslim Brotherhood front group. The men, who identified themselves as Ibrahim Kasaam and Amir Malik from the fictitious Muslim Education Action Center (MEAC) Trust, met with Schiller and Liley at CafĂ© Milano, a well-known Georgetown restaurant, and explained their desire to give up to $5 million to NPR because, “the Zionist coverage is quite substantial elsewhere.”

On the tapes, Schiller wastes little time before attacking conservatives. The Republican Party, Schiller says, has been “hijacked by this group.” The man posing as Malik finishes the sentence by adding, “the radical, racist, Islamaphobic, Tea Party people.” Schiller agrees and intensifies the criticism, saying that the Tea Party people aren’t “just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic, I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.”

Schiller goes on to describe liberals as more intelligent and informed than conservatives. “In my personal opinion, liberals today might be more educated, fair and balanced than conservatives,” he said.
Here's a link to the Project Veritas NPR Investigative Journalism Website.
Here's a partial transcript from National Review Online:
On the Jewish influence of media coverage:

Fake Muslim: … The extent to which Jews do kind of control the media. I mean, certainly the Zionists and the people who have the interest in swaying media coverage toward a favorable direction of Israel. The Palestinian viewpoint since NPR is one of the few places that has the courage to really present it. It was kind of a joke that we used to call it National Palestinian Radio.

Lilely: Oh, really? That’s good. I like that.

Fake Muslim: I’m not too upset about maybe a little bit less Jew influence of Jewish money into NPR. The Zionist coverage is quite substantial elsewhere …

Schiller: I don’t actually find it at NPR.

Fake Muslim: What exactly?

Schiller: The Zionist or pro-Israel even among funders. … I mean, it’s there in those who own newspapers obviously, but no one owns NPR. So actually, I don’t find it.

Fake Muslim: I just think what Israel does, I don’t think, can be excused frequently, so I’m glad to hear that. …

[Lilely talks about how one of NPR’s funders, the American Jewish World Service, doesn’t necessarily agree with NPR’s perspectives always.]

Schiller: Right because I think they are really looking for a fair point of view and many Jewish organizations are not. Frankly, many organizations … I’m sure there are Muslim organizations that are not looking for a fair point of view. They’re looking for a very particular point of view and that’s fine.

Fake Muslim:We’re not one of them.

Schiller: I’m gathering that you’re not.

Fake Muslim: Our funding comes from a place like the Muslim Brotherhood. You look at the way they are demonized and looked down on and shown as horrible, terrible people when they are simply just trying to help.

Lilely: Sadly, our history from the record … shows that we’ve done this before. We put Japanese Americans in camps in World War II.

On Juan Williams:

Schiller: In all of the uproar for example around Juan Williams, what NPR did, I’m very proud of. What NPR stood for is non-racist, non-bigoted, straightforward telling of the news. Our feeling is that if a person expresses his or her opinion, which anyone is entitled to do in a free society, they are compromised as a journalist, they can no longer fairly report. And the question we asked internally was can Juan Williams when he makes a statement like he made can he report to the Muslim population, for example, and be believed and the answer is no. He lost all credibility and that breaks your basic ethics as a journalist.