The average time for American workers to be out of a job is now about 30 weeks. But when you’re a conservative commentator who makes your progressive boss mad enough to fire you over some comments you made, it narrows down to about one day.
At least that’s the case for ex-NPR news analyst Juan Williams who got the ax for saying he’s scared to see Muslims on airplanes. It took less than one news cycle for Fox News to pick him up with a contract to the tune of $2 million, the Los Angeles Times reported, which is said to be significantly more than NPR was paying him. (The Page: Palin, Huckabee Bash NPR for Williams’ Firing)
Williams, despite the Fox windfall, is wasting no time criticizing his former employers and is using his new employer as a platform for it.
“…they have used an honest statement of feeling as the basis for a charge of bigotry to create a basis for firing me,” he wrote in his retort on FoxNews.com. This is an outrageous violation of journalistic standards and ethics by management that has no use for a diversity of opinion, ideas or a diversity of staff (I was the only black male on the air).”
Well, NewsFeed is sure Williams will find all those things on Fox and a whole lot more.
UPDATE: As TIME’s Jay Newton-Small reports on Swampland, Republican Senator Jim DeMint said he plans on introducing legislation to defund NPR, which gets as much as 6% of its operating costs through federal funds. See why the Republicans are in love with Williams here.