The other shoe has dropped for “World of Opera” host Lisa Simeone; NPR has now totally caved in and stopped carrying the show in response to the right wing media’s call for her personal destruction: NPR dumps opera show after host organizes DC protest; NC member station to distribute.

WASHINGTON — NPR will no longer distribute the member station-produced program “World of Opera” to about 60 stations across the country because the show host helped organize an ongoing Washington protest, a network official said Friday evening.

Instead, North Carolina-based classical music station WDAV, which produces the show, said it will distribute the nationally syndicated program on its own beginning Nov. 11. The station said it plans to keep Lisa Simeone as host and has said her involvement in a political protest does not affect her job as a music program host.

Here’s the relevant section of NPR’s Code of Ethics:

The code also applies to material provided to NPR by independent producers, member station contributors and/or reporters and freelance reporters, writers, news contributors or photographers. In cases where essayists or commentators make statements of fact those statements must meet this Code’s requirements of accuracy. NPR expects its outside contributors to be free of conflicts of interest on content they submit, to be fair and accurate in creating that material, and to pursue coverage in a manner consistent with the ethical principles stated in this code. There will be instances where provisions of this code are not applicable to an outside contributor. For example, a freelancer who primarily does arts coverage, for example, may not in some situations be subject to the prohibition on making contributions to political campaigns. Such contributions, however, might limit the range of topics or individuals the outside contributor could cover. Supervisors will make these judgments on a case-by-case basis and, if necessary, in consultation with the appropriate programming Senior Vice President, Vice President or their designee.

Technically, of course, NPR is within the bounds of their ethics code to do this. However, it’s also clear that they would normally make exceptions for freelancers who primarily cover the arts — which describes Lisa Simeone to a T.

What’s different about this case? Just one thing: a right wing mob howling for Simeone to be punished. And NPR obliged.

The saddest part of this tawdry debacle is that if NPR had simply ignored the wingnuts, or even better, publicly backed up Lisa Simeone’s right to free expression, they would have garnered a lot of support from their core audience. Instead, the core audience is wondering, “WTF?!”