Don Imus’ CBS Radio Firing: An Ending Or A Beginning? (UPDATED)
Apr 13th, 2007 | 26 responses
And now, with iconoclastic Don Imus’ career significantly downsized if not effectively totally over with news that CBS radio has fired him, the questions begin:
Is this the end of an era — or the end of one?
Will the furor over over-the-edge racial humor spread to over-the-edge political humor?
On the face of it, the news about Don Imus — all the rage for years among Washington’s elite, a loyal audience (who often included people who were not fans of his arch rival Howard Stern) is fairly simple. The New York Times:
CBS brought the tumultuous weeklong crisis over racially insensitive remarks by the radio host Don Imus to an end late this afternoon when it canceled the “Imus in the Morning� program, effective immediately.The move came one day after MSNBC, which has simulcast Mr. Imus’s radio program for the past 10 years, removed the show from the cable network’s morning lineup. The two moves together mean that Mr. Imus, who has been broadcasting his program for more than 30 years, no longer has a home on either national radio or television.
Mr. Imus received the news in a telephone call to his home. Many of his listeners learned of it during the afternoon radio show “Mike and the Mad Dog,� which announced it on WFAN, the same New York station owned by CBS that carried Mr. Imus’s program.
The CBS chairman, Leslie Moonves, held a meeting this afternoon with the Rev. Al Sharpton, one of the leaders in what became a national movement to have Mr. Imus removed from the air in the wake of comments in which he disparaged members of the Rutgers University women’s basketball team. On his program of April 4, Mr. Imus referred to the women on the team as “nappy-headed hos.�
Both CBS and MSNBC had been under pressure from black leaders, women’s groups and advertisers, many of which said they intended to pull their commercials from Mr. Imus’s program.
Simple enough? Perhaps not.
Because in the aftermath of this firing there will be issues swirling around far bigger than the non-issue of Mr. Imus’ livelihood: he is quite well off and from the standpoint of income, he won’t be seen in front of a 7-Eleven with a sign reading: “Will insult for food.”
Here are just a few of the issues and features of this quintessential early 21st century firestorm, with the fires of controversy fanned and spread by the internet, a mega-second news cycle and activists groups unwilling to let behaviors or language deemed tolerable in the past be tolerated any longer:
New York Dailiy News columnist Erroll Lewis writes:
While Imus was off plying his ugly trade, a little-noticed national movement has been forming – documented by my colleague Stanley Crouch and me in the Daily News – that repeatedly challenges the demeaning and offensive lyrics, images and real-world violence of gangsta rap.Web sites have started that call for an end to use of the N-word. Women’s groups have formed to blast rappers for using sexist, degrading lyrics and images. And grassroots coalitions succeeded in getting deejays at Hot 97 and Power 105 suspended or fired in recent years for crossing lines of basic decency.
Imus was probably unaware that a small but determined army of people has been mobilizing every few months to push back against one form or another of gutter-level bile disguised as entertainment.
So what will happen next?
–Will CBS try to replace Imus with a similar host? Or will CBS or MSNBC opt out and not fill their slots with another radio talker? OR will they try a different approach and try out a progressive host such as an Ed Schultz? There isn’t a “been there, done that” on the scale of Imus.
And will hosts such as CNN/ABC’s Glenn Beck be given a harder look by groups upset by what they say — and face stronger protests in the future?
Shouldn’t they be re-reading — and perhaps re-editing –their scripts right now?
Perhaps….if it’s the end of an era…or the beginning of a new one. A better one? Or will there be controversies within controversies — all welcome material by the now instanteanous oldmedia/newmedia news cycle?
SOME OTHER RESOURCES:
–Here’s the post on CBS’s Public eye blog announcing Imus’ firing.
–Dean Esmay has revised his post which offers a different take on this issue.
–Pioneer tart-tongued hot talk show host Bob Grant (a longtime favorite in the New York market) was himself fired by Disney but feels Imus has gotten way with “slander” for years. He also argues that there is a double standard on outrageous statements. DETAILS HERE.
UPDATE: CBS’s Dick Meyer offers THIS MUST READ perspective:
We have become serial character assassins.Don Imus is just the latest example of something sad and unattractive: we have an insatiable, mean bloodlust for bringing people down.
By “we” I mean me. And you. And Imus, who of course has made millions tearing people apart and cackling at the demise of other famous high and mighties.
The collective “we” that is, I suppose, contemporary American culture has made character destruction and celebrity-slaughter the gladiator sport of our day.
People don’t get ruined in football and boxing except by accident. But it is the goal of the culture of the character assassins. And the Coliseum is columns like this, Web sites like this and television networks like this. The Coliseum is filled with people like you and me.
We are all part of it. Who hasn’t enjoyed the downfall of some famous person — be it Mark Foley, Ted Haggerty, Bill Clinton, Sandy Berger, Britney Spears or Martha Stewart?
The merits or demerits, guilt or innocence of any of these names in the news are absolutely irrelevant to what I’m talking about. Some of us hate some people. Period.
Read it in its entirety.
UPDATE: The Washington Post’s Marc Fisher looks extensively on what comes next. Here’s a small part of his piece:
What next? Imus will go silent for a time, and then he will return, almost surely not on network broadcast radio, but somewhere, either on a New York radio station that is hard up for ratings and publicity, or in the safe environs of satellite radio, where the bad boys go to deliver their fare unrestricted by concerns about federal licenses or nervous Nellie sponsors.And the rest of the guys on the radio will pretend to be good boys for a little while, and then their bosses will very subtly let them know that it’s safe to go back into the water, because the ratings need a boost and nobody’s looking anymore, and we can all resume our lives of contradictions and antagonisms and fantasies about saying the things that the bad boys on the radio get to say every morning. Except when they don’t.
Read it all.
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26 Responses to “Don Imus’ CBS Radio Firing: An Ending Or A Beginning? (UPDATED)”
It’s really hard to say, Joe. The backlash was not just because Imus said something offensive, but because the offensive remark occurs in a historical context of prominent white men using disparaging jokes against blacks and women to belittle them and keep them from power. I don’t mean it’s an intentional conspiracy; that’s rarely the case. (Or if it is a conspiracy, I’m a white guy and I don’t know why no one’s told me about it yet.) Instead it’s just an expression of the frequently unrecognized assumption that those other people do not belong. If black women had been running the nation for a hundred years, it wouldn’t be a big deal. Moreover, Imus is also a significant social and political figure, not simply a comedian or musician, and so his words take on political significance in a way that Chris Rock doesn’t.
It’s clearly a sign that a broadcaster better be careful making fun of people who are historically in a minority (socially, politically), but it’s not clear that this is a sign that no offensive things about anyone ever be said again. One reason that you can say vicious, scathing lies about political parties is that there’s no long history in the U.S. of keeping the Democrats or Republicans down.
A last note. I haven’t read all the comments on this, but people periodically have brought up this as a free speech issue. It’s not really a free speech issue in the legal sense, I don’t believe. The 1st amendment guarantees that you can say almost anything without being prosecuted by government. It does not protect the speaker from social ridicule or even job loss from a private company. There are still consequences for what you say. You just can’t end up in jail for it. Usually.
Pacatrue: Thanks for your highly thoughtful take on this.
If the fall of Don Imus foreshadows the rise of Al Sharpton, heaven help us. Talk about a cesspit of hypocrisy. Have the Tawanna Brawley and Freddy’s Fashion Mart incidents been wiped entirely off the slate?
Pacatrue has the free speech angle exactly right.
Shaun,
Pecatrue is correct on the free speech angle but it is exactly opposite of how it was applied to the Dixie Chicks. It did not violate the speech rights of the members of the Dixie Chicks when radio stations refused to play their songs. Yet, country music stations’s refusal to play the Dixie Chicks was reported as a suppression of free speech and of censorship.
But what of the irony in having one of the most notorious race-baiters in the U.S. weighing in on this subject as the voice of wisdom?
Sharpton has long gotten a pass from the MSM. Remember Jesse Jackson’s “Hymietown” slur on the Jews of NYC.
When I first came here, the university where I worked at had — and probably still has — a racism policy that defines racism as an issue of power deployed by whites against blacks, asians etc.
By the university’s bylaws, only whites can be racists, and racist acts were only racist if perpetrated by whites.
Perhaps that is the unofficial by-law in the United States as well.
“Freedom� of speech does not mean “freedom� from criticism You can say what you want but if any group is offended they will weigh in on your comments. The bottom line is that this is a commercial enterprise and the advertisers will exercise their “freedom� to chooses what programs they will sponsor. My feeling Imus will not be off the airways for long, some radio stations and advertisers will pick him up he does have a following and that still means people to advertise to.
Grognard,
If you look at the Greaseman example, Imus is probably done.
I also wonder what this portends for the future. It all depends on the ‘American people’ that every politician and advertiser aims to please, but the ‘Amrican people’
are crazy, as far as I can tell.
I still haven’t recovered from the Janet Jackson flap.. Women have breasts!
Hide your children! Just ignore the gang warfare on our streets.
Whatever the response will be, I don’t expect it to be a rational one. It will just continue to see-saw from one lunacy to another.
The knock on Sharpton and “Hymie” Jackson is not about what they say, is that they are oportunists looking for a controversy. Their schtick has made them powerful and wealthy. A younger black pundit or journalist, on cable yesterday, attacked them om this point. He didn’t compsre them in a favorable light and asked what they have really did in comparison to Malcom X and MLK. What they are doing is similar to many US Generals who hawk the GWOT and the military suppliers in prints and on air without revealing that they are consultants or serve in the bord of General Dynamics or GE.
This is falling into such a predictable pattern. First, the uproar over the crusty old white man that made the offensive remark. So he’s gone. Fair enough.
Now, it’s time to have a “conversation” about racsm. I’m a white guy and I don’t have any problem with what happened to Imus, but frankly, I don’t want to have a conversation about race with the likes of Al Sharpton. Sharpton and many others, including Jesse Jackson, are out a job if there isn’t inflammatory racial confrontation. I’m not interested.
Well, I hope CBS Radio is proud in making the announcement of Don Imus’ firing yesterday. Today is second and final day of the 18th Annual WFAN Radiothon benefiting the CJ Foundation for SIDS, the Tomorrow’s Children Fund, and the Imus Ranch for kids with cancer. Over the past 18 years, CBS affiliate 66AM WFAN has raised millions of dollars for these charities. Don Imus was at the forefront of this effort.
If is unfair to seperate the good from the bad of any individual. Al Sharpton has made huge strides for the black community. He was presidential candidate. To associate his name with a single unfortunate incident woul be a great disservice to him and his life long accomplishments.
All I ask is that Don Imus be given equal consideration.
Here’s a little screen capture to fire up Komrads Marlow and SD. Hillary is jumping on the Imus flogging.
I just can’t vote for this woman, she is more calculating than Bill.
Here’s a little screen capture to fire up Komrads Marlow and SD. Hillary is jumping on the Imus flogging.
I just can’t vote for this woman, she is more calculating than Bill.
Here’s a little screen capture to fire up Komrads Marlow and SD. Hillary is jumping on the Imus flogging.
![](\"C:\WINDOWS\Desktop\Hillary)
I just can’t vote for this woman, she is more calculating than Bill.
I give up just go to the HillaryforPrez if you dare.
One last try.
A very, very good point, from a very smart guy with some perspective, speaking from the platform of (hide the kidzzz) FoxNews!:
More J. Williams, W. Williams, Cosby, Steele, Sowell, Elder, Crouch, PLEASE.
Komrad Marlow – Check out this for a laugh or stroke, the sheriff here is patrolling the WWW.
http://bp2.blogger.com/_OfbaArbGJ-I/Rh-YGKGN7dI/AAAAAAAAAAM/O8DR7B0IAp8/s1600-h/Hillary+Hypocrat.jpg
Comrade Rudi said:
Rudi…that is very interesting. One wonders at how they are seen in the US Black community at large.
Once again, I wonder where you find the time to keep up all of these things on the Net and the Media. Thanks for the image attempt.
Have you read Stepanopolous’ book on his years in the Clinton White House? Hillary comes off as not only calculating, but even stark raving nuts…with paranoid obsessions about the world that would impress even Nixon.
Rudi…
Hahahahahaha, I saw it. Thanks!!!
God, I do think she may be the most calculating figure to ever run for the Presidency.
I remember reading a history of Nixon that argued one reason Nixon was so successful in his dealings with Maoist China and the Soviet Union, was that Nixon thought like a highly paranoid, obsessive Communist apparatchik. Thus, Nixon and Mao were no so far apart in their thought processes.
Hillary seems much like Nixon. Everything feeding into her calculator. And you know she has an Enemies List!
Didn’t read the book, but even the snake Dickie Morris says the same thing. Multiple sources confirm the “pleasentness’ of Hillary. The link above should work. The $$$ signs courtesy of expired Vueprint. Libertarian candidate over the Liberal NYers Hillary and Rudy.
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