What’s on the NPR Tape?

The undercover videotape of NPR fund raisers released by the conservative activist James O’Keefe has come under question as news and political analysts have looked closely at how the editing was done.

The video—which led to the resignation of NPR’s chief executive, Vivian Schiller, and its senior vice president for development, Ronald J. Schiller (no relation)—was recorded during a lunch in a Washington restaurant with two people who said they were from the Muslim Education Action Center Trust, a group considering a $5-million gift to NPR. It turns out that the two people were posing as leaders of a fake charity.

Mr. O’Keefe posted a 12-minute, edited version as well as a two-hour version that he described as the entire raw footage except for one part left out to protect an overseas NPR correspondent.

Following are some of the key points Mr. Schiller made on the two-hour version released by Mr. O’Keefe. Mr. Schiller apologized for making remarks that offended people.

Why federal aid matters: While NPR could survive without federal aid, some stations, particularly those in rural areas and those that “were not smart and didn’t really look ahead,” would not survive the cuts. “We feel that the voice of reason that comes through in 900 stations scattered all throughout the country, including in the smallest towns, is what’s in jeopardy.”

Why NPR might still be better off without federal aid: Mr. Schiller explained that it could be more independent and less subject to the whims of government decision making or beholden to politicians, particularly Republicans, he said, who “play off the belief among the general population that most of our funding comes from the government.”

On who was behind the effort to cut off funds: Mr. Schiller said that to comment on that issue, he wanted to “take off his NPR hat” and talk personally. He said there is a “real anti-intellectual mood” among “a significant part of the Republican party” and that the party, “particularly the Tea Party, is fanatically involved with people’s personal lives and very fundamentally Christian, and I wouldn’t even call it Christian; it’s this weird evangelical kind of move.”

Responding to the “donor’s” suggestion that the Tea Party is “radical, racist, Islamophobic”: Mr. Schiller said that two top Republicans, including a former ambassador, had told him they had voted for Barack Obama for president because they felt their party had been “hijacked” by a group that was “not just Islamophobic but really xenophobic.” He then added: “I mean, basically, they believe in sort of white, middle-America, gun-toting, I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist.”

How NPR prevents bias: He repeatedly described what he called “a big firewall between funding and reporting.”

On the donor’s desire for NPR to “fight back against Fox News”: Mr. Schiller said that NPR doesn’t raise money to run certain kinds of stories but instead to help its journalists do their job of balanced reporting.

Several days after the tapes were released, a Web site associated with the conservative television host Glenn Beck released an analysis by an experienced video editor highlighting that the short video in some cases had distorted the conversation.

For example, it makes it appear as if Mr. Schiller said the Republican party had been “hijacked” by the Tea Party, rather than attributing it to his Republican associates.

In addition, a section of the tape that appears to show Mr. Schiller nodding in a jovial manner about the Muslims’ charity’s supposed mission to “spread the acceptance of Sharia,” or Islamic law, was actually shot when Mr. Schiller was “recounting an unrelated and innocuous issue about confusion over names in the restaurant reservation.”