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Former NPR News Exec Ellen Weiss Takes Job At Center For Public Integrity

By: Mark Memmott // September 21, 2011
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Ellen Weiss, who resigned in January from her job as NPR's senior vice president for news after an independent review raised questions about "the speed and handling" of news analyst Juan Williams' termination, has been named executive editor at the Center for Public Integrity.

There, the center says, she will oversee its "domestic investigations and editorial staff."

The center is a non-profit new organization based in Washington. Weiss told The New York Times' Media Decoder blog that "I wanted my constituents to remain the public. ... I wanted to be working somewhere that was empowering the public with high quality trusted information."

Media Decoder adds that when asked about the Williams firing, William E. Buzenberg, the center's executive director, "declined to comment on 'another news organization's personnel matters.' " (Note at 9:05 a.m. ET: Buzenberg was vice president of news and information at NPR from 1990 to 1997.)

As we've previously written:

For background on the Williams dismissal, you might start here. Alicia Shepard, NPR's ombudsman at the time, said that the firing "was poorly handled." Williams previously said he thinks he was fired because "I appear on Fox." Weiss was the NPR executive who informed Williams of his dismissal, which came after he said on Fox News Channel that he gets nervous when he sees people in "Muslim garb" on airplanes. NPR said the remark was the latest in a pattern of problem comments made by Williams over recent years.

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