Incidentally, regarding the actual OP about the NPR exec getting canned, I think this is reaction is pretty much spot on (except for the bit about not liking NPR):
You don't have to like NPR—I don't—to come to the defense of Ronald Schiller, the NPR executive who just got stung by video guerilla James O'Keefe....The video establishes that Schiller and his associate, Betsy Liley, will say almost anything or ignore any provocation to put themselves into a position to nab the $5 million. I'm sure if O'Keefe's colleagues had asked Schiller and Liley to get on their hands and knees and bark like dogs they would have answered, "What breed?" But pardon me if I'm not outraged that 1) a pair of NPR officials hosting potential donors would merrily slag conservatives, Republicans, Tea Party members, and other non-liberals or 2) display temporary deafness when deep-pocketed potential funders say ugly and demented things.
How should Schiller have fielded the incitements? Praised the Tea Party or remained neutral? Spat on them when they revealed their Muslim Brotherhood connection? Lectured them when they said stupid things about Jewish-Zionist media control? I certainly would have, and I'll bet you would have, too. But we'd last about 15 seconds in the fundraising business if every time a potential donor said something crazy or offensive, we told them to shut their pie hole. When people donate money, they feel even more entitled than when they're sitting in their home bank-vaults running their fingers through their cash. Rich people love to give their money away, but they're always attaching strings, and one common string is "You agree with me, right?"
From what I can tell, Schiller worked hard to keep the potential giver happy while maintaining a modicum of face. Still, he shot his mouth off in directions that don't make him or his organization look very professional....I see less of a crime here than I do a misdemeanor. I've never been a big one for criminalizing or punishing speech. If we're going to defund NPR (and I think we should), let's do it for the right reasons—because government shouldn't be in the business of funding news collection, not because somebody on the money-raising side of the operation said supremely stupid things during a sting.