NPR's CEO Resigns

Washington (CNN) -- National Public Radio CEO Vivian Schiller resigned Wednesday, according to NPR.

Schiller's resignation comes a day after Ron Schiller, NPR's former senior vice president for fundraising, was shown in an undercover video calling the Tea Party "racist" and "scary" and questioning whether NPR needs federal funding. Ron Schiller, no relation to Vivian Schiller, issued an apology Tuesday night and said his already-announced resignation would be effective immediately.

Dave Edwards, chairman of NPR's board of directors, said in a statement on the NPR website that the board accepted Vivian Schiller's resignation "with understanding, genuine regret and great respect for her leadership of NPR these past two years."

Edwards said he recognizes "the magnitude of this news -- and that it comes on top of what has been a traumatic period for NPR and the larger public radio community. The board is committed to supporting NPR through this interim period and has confidence in NPR's leadership team."

Joyce Slocum, NPR's senior vice president of legal affairs and general counsel, was appointed as interim CEO under a succession plan the board adopted in 2009, Edwards' statement said. The board will establish a committee "that will develop a timeframe and process for the recruitment and selection of new leadership," he said.

Edwards credited Vivian Schiller with bringing "vision and energy" to NPR and leading it back from "the enormous economic challenges of the previous two years. She was passionately committed to NPR's mission and to stations and NPR working collaboratively as a local-national news network."

NPR spokeswoman Anna Christopher said she could not confirm reports that Vivian Schiller was forced out.

Filmmaker James O'Keefe said Tuesday the video featuring Ron Schiller was part of a sting operation. He said the idea stemmed from an incident in October when NPR fired analyst Juan Williams after Williams said he got scared when people wore Muslim garb on airplanes.

"My colleague Shaughn Adeleye who posed as one of the members of the Muslim Brotherhood was pretty offended with what happened with Juan Williams and he suggested looking into NPR after that incident back in the fall," O'Keefe told CNN's Brian Todd on Tuesday. "My other colleague, Simon Templar, came up with the idea to have a Muslim angle since Juan Williams was fired due to his comments. So we decided to see if there was a greater truth or hidden truth amongst these reporters and journalists and executives."

Williams has since been hired full-time by Fox News.

O'Keefe gained notoriety for posing as a pimp and secretly taping damaging conversations with employees at the Association of Community Organizations for Reform (ACORN). He was also involved in a failed plot to embarrass a CNN correspondent on hidden camera.

Ron Schiller and another NPR executive are shown on the video having lunch with potential NPR donors, who were really working for O'Keefe undercover. In the video, they pose as representatives of a Muslim organization considering making a $5 million donation to NPR.

"Tea Party people" aren't "just Islamaphobic, but really xenophobic," Ron Schiller says on the recording. "I mean basically they are, they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it's scary. They're seriously racist, racist people."

He went on to say, "The Tea Party is fanatically involved in people's personal lives and very fundamental Christian. I wouldn't even call it Christian. It's this weird evangelical kind of move."

In the video, Ron Schiller says that NPR, which is partially funded by government money, would be "better off without federal funding."

"The problem is that if we lost it now, a lot of stations would go dark," he said.

Late Tuesday evening, Ron Schiller issued an apology through NPR.

"While the meeting I participated in turned out to be a ruse, I made statements during the course of the meeting that are counter to NPR's values and also not reflective of my own beliefs," Schiller said in a statement. "I offer my sincere apology to those I offended. I resigned from NPR, previously effective May 6, to accept another job. In an effort to put this unfortunate matter behind us, NPR and I have agreed that my resignation is effective today."

NPR spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm on Tuesday condemned Ron Schiller's remarks, saying they "are contrary to everything we stand for ... and we completely disavow the views expressed."

"NPR is fair and open minded about the people we cover," Rehm said. "Our reporting reflects those values every single day -- in the civility of our programming, the range of opinions we reflect and the diversity of stories we tell."

Rehm also decried Ron Schiller's statement that NPR would be "better off without federal funding," saying it "does not reflect reality. The elimination of federal funding would significantly damage public broadcasting as a whole."