They said what? Five public figures whose comments landed them in hot water.

In today's 24/7 news cycle, it isn’t hard for controversial comments about race and other sensitive topics to turn into a public spectacle. Some remarks have ended careers, some have caused public shaming, and others had little long-term effect at all. Here are five individuals who made controversial, high-profile statements – and here are the consequences they faced.

1. Juan Williams

AP

When: October 2010

What was said: In a conversation with TV host Bill O’Reilly, the journalist said he got “nervous” when Muslims in religious dress boarded planes on which he was traveling.

What resulted: Two days later, Mr. Williams was fired by NPR, where he had served in senior positions since 1999. He remains a political analyst at Fox News and continues to contribute to a number of national publications.

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Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

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