Juan Williams and Rick Sanchez, Adios, and Good Riddance

On September 30th, Rick Sanchez, formerly a news commenter on CNN, made an offensive outburst in which he called comedian / pundit Jon Stewart, who is Jewish, a bigot, and made anti-Semitic statements about Jews generally in the media industry.

This week Juan Williams was fired from NPR, for having made offensive statements about Muslims and fear.


The stories intrigued me both because of their similarities and differences, and because Rick Sanchez has a Minnesota connection.

Similarities:
Rick Sanchez is 52, was born in Cuba; Juan Williams is 56, and was born in Panama.  Sanchez came with his family to this country when he was 2; Juan Williams came to this country with his family when he was 4 years old.  Both pursued careers in journalism, Sanchez in broadcasting, Williams initially in the print media before moving to broadcasting.  Sanchez grew up  in Florida, and went to college in Minnesota on a scholarships. Williams grew up in New York, and went to college in Pennsylvania, on scholarships.  Both men have been quite public about their experiences with discrimination for their Hispanic ethnicity, and in the case of Williams also for being black.  Both men like to promote the notion that because they were themselves victims of discrimination, they are apparently immune to being held responsible for practicing any form of bigotry, rather than being evaluated on the content of their statements the same way other people are evaluated, regardless of their backgrounds.

I don't accept that double standard, and neither should anyone else, as an excuse or justification for making stupid or biased or offensive comments.

Both men have worked long enough in the news business to understand the professional ethics of impartiality, and to be well aware of the requirements of the various news media employers.  See the recent post I wrote about the prohibitions on participation in the Jon Stewart Rally for an example of the importance of both being impartial and appearing to be impartial and as unbiased as possible.  These are not sudden, new expectations, they are well known industry standards (except as practiced by Fox-Not-the-News, which routinely ignores journalism ethics, presenting misinformation as sort-of-news, calling it entertainment only when challenged sufficiently to back down).

There was a pushback from Jon Stewart over the firing of Rick Sanchez by CNN for his remarks, in a variety of venues including this interview on Larry King Show.  There has been pushback over the firing of Juan Williams by public figures loosely associated with journalism, like Barbara Walters.  And of course, Fox News, where Williams had been a recurring personality; Fox News promptly hired Williams with a multi-million dollar salary deal.  Sanchez has expressed a desire to return to CNN.

What Sanchez said was offensive to many people, even if Jon Stewart was more tolerant and forgiving of the comments.  If the same statement was made by someone who was not a person associated with a different minority experience, they would have been excoriated.  No one would have objected to the firing.

I object to this double standard.  I WAS offended by Sanchez' remarks, and I believe they go directly to his ability to continue to be a broadcaster for CNN.  Stewart has been highly critical, both of the quality of broadcasting from Sanchez, and of CNN.  It seem wrong to me for Stewart to assert that Sanchez should not have been fired for violating industry ethics, while faulting CNN for not being a better network that employed a person performing poorly.  I don't believe Sanchez was only fired for the comments he made, but rather that he had been failing and his comments - like Lou Dobb's before him - had precipitated his firing as a catalyst.  When an event like that occurs, it is wrong to fault the catalyst  for the result.

Williams has left NPR which overall has a much better reputation as a serious news organization, for Fox which is a bad joke everywhere but among the far right.  I am cynical enough to believe that the only value Williams has to Fox News IS his previous association with NPR.  I have yet to come across reports of any other broadcasting organization with legitimate credentials making offers to either Williams or Sanchez.  That doesn't suggest to me that either gentleman is as well regarded any longer in their profession as they once were.

Differences:
There has been an effort on the part of Fox to give Williams cover for his Muslim comments.  Personally, his demonstration of ignorance deeply offends me every bit as much as Sanchez's anti-semitism.  Williams should have been well aware that the people who have engaged in terrorism against this country, and against our allies in other countries like the UK, Canada, France, and Germany, have NOT been obvious terrorists by appearing in 'muslim dress'.   By Muslim dress, presumably Williams means the clothing of their native country, as THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A UNIVERSAL MUSLIM CLOTHING.  The terrorists appear in the same western clothing as other people who are not Muslim. The very notion that you can identify someone's religion in most cases by their clothing is absurd, with the exceptions of certain clergy, or certain communities like some sects of the Amish or Chassidic Jews, where the clothing is an expression of a larger culture, not only their religion.  I very much doubt that Mr. Williams could identify correctly the clothing worn in the countries that he claims frighten him.  That ignorance, that failure to have a factual basis for his derogatory bias, makes him a bigot.  It marks him as a bigot for making assumptions without fact, for believing terrible things about a large group of people without a reasonable basis.  Mr. Williams was an xenophobic and as islamophobic in his remarks as anything said by the faux Rev. Jones who wanted to burn the Korans on 9/11.

Both Williams and Sanchez have disgraced themselves, and discredited their former employers.  Both have expressed racist, religiously intolerant, and inaccurate statements about broad groups of people who deserve better treatment.  That these are their personal attitudes intrudes on their ability to use their personal judgement in doing their jobs.  It does not violate their first amendment rights; no government entity is censoring them or punishing them.  Their employers are entitled to exercise their contractual rights for at-will employment.  These contractual rights are not new, they are not a surprise, they were agreed to by both men when they signed on to those organizations.

It is not surprising that Fox-Not-the-News network is trying to demonize NPR for political correctness.  Fox has made a LOT of money pandering and peddling moral panic islamophobia to their viewers.  It is not in their interest to be either fair or balanced.  That wouldn't sell overpriced collectible gold coins and other junk to their viewers.  Fox-Not-News/Nut-News is the last sanctuary for disgraced bigots.