Please write to NPR and to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the government entity that channels money to affiliate stations. Ask what actions will be taken with Fields and Silva to make clear to them, and other NPR staff, that advocacy journalism will not be tolerated. Ask that NPR's president send an official letter to Ali Abunimah and the AAAN expressly stating that Ellen Silva had inappropriately made a decision to ban Steve Emerson from NPR reports before she had investigated AAAN' s charges. Ask NPR to further clearly state that they could not substantiate AAAN's claims that Emerson was racist, and that as a noted expert in the field of terrorism, Emerson would be welcome on future NPR programs concerning this topic. Fifty original letters are more effective than two thousand form letters.
Nothing corrupts a free press like conspiring to silence a man.
And when the conspiracy results from arm-twisting by extremists, it is not only corrupting, but cowardly. This is a story of blacklisting at National Public Radio. One of several guests interviewed by telephone was Steven Emerson, an investigative journalist and a leading expert on Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. Emerson has reported in detail on Islamic extremism and has focused public attention on the network of terror cells and front groups operating in the United States. Unobjectionable, that is, to anyone except the Islamic terrorists and their supporters whom Emerson has done so much to expose.