Over my years in newspapers I made a note of what it took people to get fired because far too often incompetence wasn’t one of them.

What did get people fired?

• Discussing a potential job with a competing paper at the office within earshot of your supervisor.
• Calling in “sick” and then appearing at a news conference freelancing for the New York Times.
• Telling your boss to “Go F*** himself.” Twice. (The first wasn’t enough to earn the firing.)

At NPR, the standards are significantly lower.

“I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

That statement, made on Fox News’ “The O’Reilly Factor” got Juan Williams fired yesterday.

NPR said that statement was “inconsistent with our editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”

To say that this whole episode is outrageous is an understatement. That NPR gets any funding – no matter how trivial – from the American taxpayer is an outrage.