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Billionaire Soros pays for additional NPR reporters

Juan Williams may be gone from National Public Radio’s lineup of commentators, but billionaire liberal icon George Soros has donated $1.8 million to hire 100 new reporters for 50 of its radio stations, FOXNews.com reported Friday.

The money will go to launch a project called Impact of Government, which Soros’ Open Society Foundation says will “bring greater transparency and accountability to the workings of state capitals across the country.”

The group, which describes its mission as building “tolerant democracies whose governments are accountable to their citizens,” calls it a response to the decline in news coverage of state legislatures.

“A strong democracy requires a diverse, independent, and highly functioning watchdog press to help people hold the government and private sector accountable,” Ann Beeson, executive director of U.S. Programs at the Open Society Foundations, said in a statement earlier this week.

Vivian Schiller, NPR president and CEO, said the boost puts the public radio stations in a better position than other news outlets to cover the impact of state government on local communities.

“Our network provides a perfect vehicle for cross-state, cross-region, and national analyses of the most critical issues facing our country,” Schiller said in the statement.

Schiller is one of two NPR executives who announced Wednesday that the network was firing national analyst Juan Williams over remarks he made Monday on “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox News.

In his appearance, Williams said he gets nervous when he flies on airplanes with individuals wearing “Muslim garb.” During the segment on jihad and angst toward Muslims in America, Williams also warned against suggesting all Muslims are extremists.

NPR has said it will use the Open Society Foundation donation to solicit applications for “pilot projects” among member stations that will be selected in December and launched in March 2011.

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