Don Imus

I am actually surprised that MSNBC has told Imus "allez, out!" I had to check Imus' ratings for the show because, you know it would have made sense if the show was floundering.

Well ... it seems somebody has a spine at MSNBC's parent company, NBC.

The TV Guy reports that Imus' morning simulcast was doing so well, CNN decided to change it's morning anchor line-up to stopgap the ratings blood-bath.

I am still cynical about this whole fiasco, but I'm going to applaud this move by the cable broadcaster. It seems they not only listened to the public uproar but actually follow the advice of key employees in the company. I don't know if Al Roker was one of those employees, but I love what he publish in his post, "Not in my house" :

"Incorrect" is not good.

The New York Times reports,

NBC News dropped Don Imus yesterday, canceling his talk show on its MSNBC cable news channel a week after Mr. Imus made racially disparaging remarks about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

The move came after several days of widening calls for Mr. Imus to lose his job both on MSNBC, which simulcasts the “Imus in the Morning” show, and CBS Radio, which originates the show. NYT

Imus was doing what he is paid to do. He was doing his job. He was doing what made him successful. He was fulfilling the role society offered him.

I don't defend what he does or even say he shouldn't get his comuppance. But I do feel that it is wrong that Imus is being dropped like a hot potato for insensitive, rude comments while Bill O'Reilly can tell American Jews to move to Israel if they don't like a Christian America and Ann Coulter can advocate terrorism and violence and largely get away with it.

Imus is a royal asshole. But that was what he was getting paid to be. Ann Coulter is getting paid to advocate violence. Bill O'Reilly is getting paid to advocate pogroms. They are each getting paid far more than I get paid to be a scientist.

This is what society values, if salaries are any indication. Assholes, terrorist advocates and anti-Semites. In the grand scheme of what is wrong in today's media, Don Imus ranks pretty minor in the long list of disgusting statements. He, at least, wasn't advocating violence.

A grad school friend of mine commented on the sexual assault charges against Mike Tyson: "We pay people to beat eachother up, then we are surprised when they are violent."

We pay people to be assholes, terrorist advocates and anti-Semites on the air...then we are surprised when they say things offensive.

Don Imus and his wife run a cattle ranch for children with cancer. They sell a line of foods where all the profits go to this ranch. They have designed cleaning products that are environmentally safer and safer for children than store brands, they sell them at cut rate prices to schools and hospitals and any profit they make goes to a center for pediatric oncology.

Errol Louis has a piece in today's Daily News worth quoting at length. The subject is, of course, L'Affaire Imus. Here's the link.

In this case, the college women slandered by Imus on national television and radio were the best of the best: high academic achievers at a school with tough standards, and hardworking, competitive athletes. Epiphanny Prince, a star freshman on the squad, is already a New York legend, scoring an unheard-of 113 points in a single high school game.

They did all anybody ever asked of them - they stayed out of trouble, got an education, worked hard and literally played by the rules. They deserved much more than to be dismissed as "nappy-headed ho's" before a national audience.

Imus also hit a raw nerve with his sneering contempt for black achievement, playing out the worst fear of many black professionals: that in the end, everything you ever learned or accomplished might end up counting for nothing, dismissed with a racist epithet by a group of chuckling, middle-aged white guys with power.

Exactly right. Your average racist believes (I suppose, and if there is an average) that blacks are, take your pick, lazy, stupid, ignorant, whatnot.

Except that these young women manifestly, clearly, eye-openingly, were not. Did it help them?

Of course not.

It's not shocking to see how the corporate masters of people like Ann Coulter and Don Imus to insist in selling them as valuable assets. They prop up and pay bigots because they represent millions of dollars. Hate is the road most travelled.

Hate is easy to exploit, it's an emotion that replicates faster than love thanks to the addictive qualities of adrenaline. Capitalism is based on the mining of adrenaline through the celebration of hate, the use of addictive substances in food, the exploitation of fear.

The big companies behind the likes of Rush Limbaugh will make sure their well-oiled money machines keep on raking in the benjamins. What is shocking to this cynic heart is to see how civil rights advocates fall for the money crap when it comes to gauging the worthiness of a cause.

It's still astounding to me to hear and read people on the left rationalize keeping racists and mysogynists by the measure of money they generate or popularity they have. More than once I've seen people on TV or read emails of people who said "why bother" when it comes to calling for Imus' oust.

And you know this is not just on big media outlets --FireDogLake is the perfect example of the racist pox on the lefty blogosphere being defended by many because of their popularity and for the amount of money they've raised for democrats.

Sigh.

Don Imus' money machine should be unplugged in much the same way Ann Coulter's and Rush Limbaugh's. Here's what Chris Rabb has to say about that :

Of the ten beautiful, accomplished, championship athlete students labeled so vividly and unfairly by political radio host Don Imus, Heather and Katie aren't even African-American. Essence is a classical pianist. Half are freshmen (freshwomen? freshgirls?) just out of high school and by university policy are therefore considered not yet ready for media interaction.

THEY were labeled, these ten young women. Not a race, not a sex, sport or constituency. These particular, extraordinary and now extraordinarily visible young women. No one has apologized to them. Why should labeling them be a matter decided by a fight between Don Imus and Al Sharpton?

Imus could be in real danger if the outcry causes advertisers to shy away from him, said Tom Taylor, editor of the trade publication Inside Radio. The National Organization for Women is also seeking Imus' ouster.

Imus isn't the most popular radio talk-show host — the trade publication Talkers ranks him the 14th most influential — but his audience is heavy on the political and media elite that advertisers pay a premium to reach. Authors, journalists and politicians are frequent guests — and targets for insults.

He has urged critics to recognize that his show is a comedy that spreads insults broadly.

Consider this post the result of my taking a good idea and running with it.

A letter writing campaign is more than writing the letter. Believe me, I know. While in college, I helped coordinate letter writing campaigns for Amnesty International. With AI, things are slightly easier because they refine a form letter for you. We printed the letters, learned about the causes (sometimes coupling them with presentations to the public), set up an outpost in a high traffic area, and we convinced people to read and to sign the letters. And that was merely one step for the letter signing activist and one step out of many for us.

So starting a letter writing campaign from scratch requires a little more work, unless there are websites who already have form letters. If you have a form letter, some of the work has been done for you. For the Imus situation, I understand that the National Organization for Women has taken up the massive hint they should be involved in this matter where Imus publicly insulted black women. They have form letters to the station manager Chuck Bortnick (most direct superior of Imus), CBS Communications Director Karen Mateo (CBS Radio owns the station generally), and MSNBC Television (they hype the show like it's its favorite play cousin). Now, if you want to get someone fired, those three people are good people to try to convince, right? Yes...but in our money-driven corporate media, do you think the letters telling them to cease and desist will be enough? No doubt they play a role, but will they be enough?