Npr Ceo Vivian Schiller

Npr Ceo Vivian Schiller, NPR’s embattled chief executive resigned today after the top fundraiser for NPR said offensive things about Republicans and the Tea Party during an undercover sting orchestrated by conservative activist James O’Keefe.

Vivian Schiller, the ousted CEO, had also come under fire in recent months for NPR’s firing of conservative commentator Juan Williams last October.

But the controversial comments made by Ron Schiller, former president of the NPR Foundation, during what he thought was a lunch with potential donors from a Muslim-affiliated trust, cost Vivian Schiller her job.

Vivian and Ron Schiller are not related.

Another public broadcasting operation was targeted by the same sting. PBS today said that its senior vice president for development, Brian Reddington, responded to invitations by the same group but after an initial meeting, had “profound concerns” about the group.

“PBS’s practice is to vet potential donors when there is an appearance of a conflict of interest and to ensure they meet requirements of transparency and openness,” spokeswoman Anne Bentley said in a statement. “Attempts to confirm the credentials of the organization proved unsatisfactory and communication was halted by PBS.”

PBS and NPR are not affiliated with each other, though both receive money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which is funded by Congress.

Tea Party Movement

Tea Party Movement, The Tea Party movement (TPM) is an American populist political movement that is generally recognized as conservative and libertarian, and has sponsored protests and supported political candidates since 2009.

 It endorses reduced government spending, opposition to taxation in varying degrees, reduction of the national debt and federal budget deficit, and adherence to an originalist interpretation of the United States Constitution.

The name “Tea Party” is a reference to the Boston Tea Party, a protest by colonists who objected to a British tax on tea in 1773 and demonstrated by dumping British tea taken from docked ships into the harbor. Some commentators have referred to the Tea in “Tea Party” as the backronym “Taxed Enough Already”.