NPR to review Williams firing

NPR has hired an outside investigator to review its botched (at least from a P.R. standpoint) firing of commentator Juan Williams last month.

But NPR’s ombudsman isn’t happy with the notion that some of the resulting report won’t be made public.

I’m told it’s unlikely the final report will be made public in its entirety, though parts of it may be. I always advocate for transparency, but NPR considers this a personnel issue even though the resulting damage to NPR goes beyond the consequences of firing an independent contractor.

NPR can hire the most sophisticated investigators in the world, but how can such a review have credibility if people who care about NPR can’t read the full results of it? NPR needs to find a way to make the full report –or the key parts of it –public.