Conservative hidden camera sting targets NPR

Conservative hidden camera sting targets NPR

Brian Montopoli
CBS News
March 8, 2011

Conservative activist James O'Keefe, whose deceptively edited hidden camera videos have made him a star on the right, is out with a new video targeting National Public Radio executive Ron Schiller - and by extension NPR itself.

The video purports to show Schiller speaking to a pair of men posing as representatives of a phony Muslim group called seeking to give $5 million to NPR. The men tell Schiller they are affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist political movement.

It shows Schiller stating that the Republican Party and the Tea Party is "fanatically involved in people's personal lives and very fundamental Christian - and I wouldn't even call it Christian. It's this weird evangelical kind of move."

Schiller goes on to say that the "xenophobic" Tea Party has hijacked the GOP and calls them "white, middle-America, gun-toting - I mean, it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people."

The video suggests that Schiller subsequently added that he wanted to "talk personally, as opposed to wearing my NPR hat," then suggesting that there is an "anti-intellectual" bent among much of the Republican Party.

"In my personal opinion, liberals today might be more educated, fair and balanced than conservatives," he says.

It's not clear whether O'Keefe, who has been shown to have manipulated his videos in the past to suit his agenda, manipulated his new video, though he has also posted what he says is the full video online. (O'Keefe's record also includes a botched attempt to seduce a CNN reporter as part of a prank and a guilty plea for entering federal property under false pretenses.) But NPR has confirmed that Schiller is the person talking, and released a statement saying he was no longer with the organization.

In a statement posted on Twitter by NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik, NPR said it refused the offer from the phony group for a $5 million check with no strings attached. Dana Davis Rehm, NPR's senior vice president for communications & external relations, added that Schiller left NPR last week for another job, though NPR says the decision was not related to the video release.

"We are appalled by the comments made by Ron Schiller in the video, which are contrary to what NPR stands for," Rehm said.

The comments by Schiller, who is not related to CEO Vivian Schiller, have generated outrage among conservatives, who are citing them as part of their push to ensure no federal money gets to NPR. (As Hotsheet reported in October, after the last round of calls for NPR to be defunded, NPR gets up to ten percent of its budget from the federal government, mostly through dues from member stations.) Ron Schiller says in the video that "we would be better off in the long-run without federal funding," though he says that "if we lost it all together we would have a lot of stations go dark."

Schiller did not have an editorial role at NPR; he was the head of the organization's nonprofit foundation, and essentially served as a fundraiser. The release of the video showing O'Keefe's elaborate sting, which included a fake website for the fake Muslim group, is the latest example of an emerging trend: Partisans using false identities and hidden cameras to embarrass their opposition and score ideological points.

Just yesterday, the left seized on a video showing Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown asking conservative billionaire David Koch for money for his 2012 reelection campaign. "Your support during the election, it meant a ton," Brown says in the video. "It made a difference and I can certainly use it again." The video was shot surreptitiously by blogger Brad Johnson of the liberal site Think Progress at the dedication of the David H. Koch Integrative Cancer Institute at MIT.

And last month, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took a call from a left-leaning journalist pretending to be David Koch, which the journalist then released to the public.

NPR executive calls Tea Party supporters 'racist'

Catalina Camia
USA Today
March 8, 2011

A large Tea Party group is calling on Congress to take away funding from NPR following the revelation that one of the news organization's fundraising executives slammed the Republican Party and supporters of the small-government movement.

Ronald Schiller was recorded secretly by James O'Keefe, according to The New York Times. O'Keefe, who released the NPR video today, is the man behind the video that took down ACORN, in a secretly recorded video in 2009 that led to the grass-roots community organizing group being stripped of its federal funding.

In the latest video, Schiller tells people posing as Muslims that supporters of the Tea Party are "seriously racist, racist people" and that the Republican Party has been "hijacked" by the Tea Party.

Schiller also says NPR "would be better off in the long run without federal funding" and is heard laughing when someone jokes that NPR should be known as "National Palestinian Radio."

Dana Davis Rehm, NPR's senior vice president of marketing, communications and external relations, denounced Schiller's comments in a statement.

"We are appalled by the comments made by Ron Schiller in the video, which are contrary to what NPR stands for," the statement said.

The conservative Daily Caller reported on the existence of the videotape this morning.

Schiller announced last week that he is leaving NPR. Rehm's statement also said the people posing as the Muslim Action Education Center tried to get NPR to accept a $5 million check, which NPR refused to accept.

Tea Party Patriots, one of the largest umbrella organizations for Tea Party groups, point to Schiller's comments as reasons why Congress should no longer provide federal subsidies to NPR.

"Mr. Schiller himself candidly admits in the video that NPR doesn't need federal funding," said Mark Meckler, national coordinator for Tea Party Patriots, calling NPR a "clearly biased news organization that is out of touch with Americans."

"At a time when the country is upside down by more than a trillion dollars, can we really afford to provide huge subsidies to entities that openly state that they don't need the money," Meckler said.

NPR should be defunded immediately just based on this. There is no excuse for giving my tax dollars to an organization that stands diametrically opposed to my views.

dblboggie wrote:NPR should be defunded immediately just based on this. There is no excuse for giving my tax dollars to an organization that stands diametrically opposed to my views.

I agree. If it was any other news organization saying this, it wouldn't be a big deal to me. But since they use tax dollars for partial funding, it is a big deal. If FNC were partly funded by tax dollars, nobody would want them to spew their views on their dime either.