MSNBC

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" :

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 :

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?