Friday, October 22, 2010

And What About Mara Liasson?

I would never ask or call for Mara to resign.  She's had a good gig at NPR for a long time, and it's part of her identity.  I can see that.  Journalism's a tough place to make a living (especially when you can be fired for being truthful about your emotions ... emotions most other people share ... but I digress).

But if she could resign that job and keep her career... boy, I'd sure think about it if I were in her shoes.  (Because, for one thing, her shoes would look silly on me and it would be quite embarassing.  Thank you, I'll be here all week.  Whaddaya know, it's friday!)

Anyway, I brought it up in my previous post ... Fox brings Liasson on to provide a balancing, counter point of view to the right.   Question is now, how can we ever be certain again if her opinion hasn't been tempered by the threat of being fired?

It seems to me that it's an instant devaluing of her opinion on these shows.

She does have a lot of name recognition.  She's been on NPR since 1985.  Her resignation would send a strong signal to NPR that they have, ahem, "crossed a line".

2 comments:

jeffmon said...

I was worried there for a bit that you might have gone squishy when you expressed (albeit mild) reservations about discontinuing support of your local NPR affiliate. In the end you did the right thing. I would hate to think you would compromise an important principle to keep a job.

Now we wait to see if anyone at NPR has a spine and resigns. I'm betting fewer than three.

philmon said...

No, I'm just going to handle it more carefully. I'm doin' it. I've actually been considering it for a few years. This incident made it a no-brainer.