Per Deadline, Donald Sutherland has signed on to a comedy pilot at Fox set in the rollicking world of NPR. While it's purportedly a pilot focused on a father-son relationship, we're sure the setting will have some impact upon the plotlines, especially since Fox's corporate cousins at Fox News have had a few things to say about NPR recently!

• “They are, of course, Nazis. They have a kind of Nazi attitude. They are the left wing of Nazism. These guys don’t want any other point of view. They don’t even feel guilty using tax dollars to spout their propaganda. They are basically Air America with government funding to keep them alive," Fox News chief Roger Ailes on NPR, 11/17/2011
• "I am not yet convinced that the NPR national operation in Washington has been able to rid itself of the elite liberal orthodoxy that made me into their whipping boy." --Juan Williams, Fox News commentator, 10/25/2011
• "Why should conservatives’ taxes pay for this?," from FoxNews.com article "NPR Admits It's Packed With Liberals," 03/16/2011
• "This shake-up at the taxpayer-funded broadcaster should not be soon forgotten. It shows the degree to which off-base and twisted Tea Party opposition can be, and how high the fanaticism reaches," 03/11/2011
• "NPR Executive Goes on Bigoted Rant," post syndicated from the Daily Caller, 03/08/2011
• "[NPR] throw[s] out propaganda in violation of the First Amendment... Terrorists want to create terror. Well, what does NPR want to create? They're intimidating, too," Bill O'Reilly's on-air comments, 10/2010

We eagerly await the show, as we love to laugh!

Romenesko got his hands on a memo that NPR president and CEO Vivian Schiller sent out to her staff Thursday morning which said the company is still conducting its planned review of the firing. NPR has commissioned the attorneys at the Weil Firm for its post mortem on Williams' ouster. Schiller said the laywers "had been asked to work quickly," but thoroughly and that it was too early to report on their findings. 

"It would be premature to anticipate what form their report will take or what parts might be made public at this time," Schiller wrote. 

The trouble started when Williams told Fox host Bill O'Reilly that he is fearful of "people who are in Muslim garb."

"I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot," Williams said. "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."

The day after he was fired from NPR, Williams joined Fox News as a full-time contributor. 

Norris told the Tampa Bay Tribune that she was "disappointed" by her omission from the book.

"You have to ask NPR why it happened," Norris said.

The "All Things Considered" host was invited to contribute an essay to NPR's anniversary tome, but she was busy writing her memoirs and her name wasn't included anywhere in the 272 pages of This Is NPR.

NPR spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm told the Tribune that it "was an inexcusable mistake."

"She should have been in the book," Rehm said.

Norris joined "All Things Considered" in 2002. The incident comes as the public radio network faces a firestorm of criticism following the firing of senior news analyst Juan Williams.

Williams, who is African-American, was given the axe after making controversial comments about Muslims on Fox News' "O'Reilly Factor." Following his ouster, Williams wrote an angry, 1,529 word essay that criticized NPR for a lack of "diversity of opinion, ideas or a diversity of staff."

"I was the only black male on the air," Williams wrote.

Williams is now a full-time contributor at Fox News.

Shepard noted that most of the emails were a bit on the negative side. "Many said the same thing," Shepard wrote. "'NPR, you’re fired.' Or, 'I’m never donating to NPR again.'"

The email count refers only to the messages sent specifically to the ombudsman's office. NPR won't reveal the total tally of Williams-related messages, Shepard said, as a "matter of policy."

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

Keith Olbermann's tribute to his mother, MSNBC, April 4, 2009

Glenn Beck, Fox News, March 13, 2009.

Juan Williams on Election Night, Fox News, November 4, 2008.

Roland Martin on Election Night, CNN, November 4, 2008.

Andrea Mitchell on Tim Russert's death, NBC, June 13, 2008.

Tom Brokaw on Tim Russert, NBC, June 15, 2008.

Jon Stewart after 9/11, Comedy Central, September 20, 2001.

Dan Rather discussing 9/11 on Late Show with David Letterman, CBS, September 17, 2001.

Herbert Morrison at the site of The Hindenberg disaster, newsreel, May 6, 1937.