Scott Johnson of PowerLine blog reminds us that this isn’t the first time that NPR has caved to Islamo-fascist sensibilities. I had forgotten the column by Jeff Jacoby that Johnson mentions, but I remember now that it made an impression on me. As managing editor of The Herald-Sun in Durham at the time, I was on an anti-PC crusade, which was difficult considering that most of our reporters and editors were steeped in that particular religion. Here’s what Jacoby wrote to Scott:
Before NPR’s disgraceful treatment of Juan Williams, there was NPR’s disgraceful treatment of Steven Emerson, one of the world’s foremost experts on the threat from Islamist terrorism. In 1998 I learned that NPR — in response to pressure from Islamist extremists — had blackballed Emerson from appearing on its airwaves.
When I broke the story in the Boston Globe, NPR denied that it ever blackballed anyone. Yet Emerson was still being kept off the air three years later — i.e., after 9/11, when everyone could see just how prescient his warnings had been.
Links to Jacoby’s 1998 column and his 2002 update are at the link for Scott’s post.
