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I don’t know who should own Egon Schiele’s “Portrait of Wally” or whether that issue should be decided by U.S. or Austrian courts or whether the Museum of Modern Art is behaving well or badly in the case. But National Public Radio should be highly embarrassed that it apparently ‘terminated’ a reporter, David D’Arcy, for a story that, while clearly pitched against MOMA, was seemingly accurate and at least as fair as anything else you hear on NPR. NPR’s ombudsman, Jeffrey Dvorkin, has now defended the network’s pro-MOMA “clarification,” while somehow skirting the D’Arcy removal, which is the crux of the controversy. That in turn prompted this lengthy and well-informed blowback from Randol Schoenberg of the anti-MOMA side. …
Dvorkin’s piece isn’t as bad as Schoenberg says. It’s worse! Dvorkin writes:
The NPR report implied that the painting was part of MoMA’s permanent collection .…
That’s true, but according to NEXIS the only part of the report that implied this was host Melissa Block’s intro. D’Arcy’s report, as broadcast, made it completely clear that the painting was seized by the U.S. government after being loaned to MOMA by its putatitve Austrian owners. … Did D’Arcy write Block’s words? If not, why was he the one axed?
He was probably wearing the red shirt.
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