Imus(t) Blog On This

April 11th, 2007 · 25 Comments · Main, Media

Update 8:30 p.m.: It happened sooner than I thought. MSNBC has canceled the simulcast of Imus. Now he will just go back to radio exclusively, just like he was 10 years ago. Even if CBS radio drops him, someone else will surely pick up the show. He makes too much money for whomever he works.

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I promised myself I wouldn’t blog about Don Imus’s “ho” woes — mostly because the 20 million other bloggers in the world all are. But this piece pretty well sums up my feelings on the subject.

I’ve been listening to the man for more than 20 years, back when he was on the old WNBC. He has and his supporting cast have been pushing the envelope with racial and religious humor for decades. For a helpful list of Imus’s objectionable episodes, click here and scroll about halfway down.

There’s a reason Imus succeeded so well on radio and has now crashed and will likely burn on TV.

Most people listen to radio when they are alone and so almost no one knows for sure what a friend or relative listens to during the morning commute. Frankly, there are times when I’m glad I’m alone while listening to such locker-room humor. It saves me the trouble of blushing.

Here’s what I think will happen. As Colin has noted, the atmosphere on the show since the beginning of this week has been almost “funereal,” especially without the presence of sidekicks like producer Bernard McGuirk, who also happens to be the biggest purveyor of racial humor on the show. Hmm … is his sudden disappearance a coincidence?

The constant begging for forgiveness makes the show unwatchable. Plus, Imus has said he plans to change the tone of the show. And (ironically) that’s what will get him fired in the end. A change in tone will cause the show to lose its edginess, which is what makes it haul in an audience of 2 million per day in the first place.

Then his show will get canceled for low ratings and soon thereafter he will turn up on radio, which is where he is better suited to ply his trade anyway.

Then, as the LA Times piece linked at the top of this page advises, black leaders like the odious Al Sharpton should set about enhancing their own credibility. They should insist that African American hip-hoppers (whose misogynistic “lyrics” would make even Imus blush) be fired for their transgressions as well.

P.S. When are white people who say racist things going to get out of the habit of apologizing to racial hustlers like Sharpton? It’s a bit like a drug addict begging Rush Limbaugh for forgiveness.

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25 responses so far ↓

1 Evorgleb // Apr 11, 2007 at 2:43 pm

The whole thing with Imus is crazy. I honestly have very mixed feelings on the whole thing. One of the guys over at Highbrid Nation who actually worked with Imus at WFAN for years wrote a good article talking about Imus’ views on race from the perspective of a minority that was around him every day. You should check it out if you get a chance.
2 fred // Apr 11, 2007 at 4:33 pm

i also blogged on this.. what really got me was that sharpton was calling up quotes for decades ago, calling them racist, etc.

Where is someone to call up Sharptons spotless history?

Bill Maher said it best when he called in and said “If this is your biggest convern, Mr. Sharpton, then civil rights in this counrty are doing alot better than I thought.”
3 Amy // Apr 11, 2007 at 9:01 pm

Fred, I love Bill Maher even more now!

Should Imus have said what he did? Absolutely not. Have some people gone overboard in this situation? Absolutely.

Imus is the original shock jock. He has been saying things that are politically incorrect and provocative for years. This is what (most) people expect of him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he pulls a Howard Stern and goes to XM or Sirius in the near future.
4 Doug Richardson // Apr 11, 2007 at 11:59 pm

I have two words for Al Sharpton:

“Tawanna Brawley.”

Like you, Terry, I have been listening to Imus since first came on WNBC in NYC…the first time, before he was banished to Cleveland for a few years for yet another offensive joke. Lest anyone forgets, it’s Imus who plays the full “I Have a Dream” speech on Martin Luther King’s birthday–every year.

It would seem that white males are the only group who can be insulted and impugned with impunity.
5 Michael Flint // Apr 12, 2007 at 6:00 am

I am sure most of the viewers/listeners either laughed or muttered ‘dumb-ass’ when the ‘inflamatory’ comment was made by Mr. Imus. Most of them probably went about their daily business.

What I object to here is the muffling of FREE SPEECH by people like Al Sharpton (whom I find offensive, but that does not seem to make him go away).

MSNBC will never grace my TV set again until they apologize to me for stepping on FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

The comment by Imus MAY HAVE OFFENDED SOME PEOPLE. Let us not forget that, like it or not, many people WERE NOT OFFENDED.

Even with that in mind, we cannot allow the sensorship of talk radio or TV based on judgements like this one.

The base FCC rules that are in place now will protect us from the worst, and DO NOT infringe on FREE SPEECH.

People have a choice of what they listen to.

Someone needs to teach Mr. Sharpton how to use his remote.

Then again … there are some things even the best teacher can’t do!
6 William // Apr 12, 2007 at 7:22 am

I think Imus’s real crime was picking on “kids” which is what college student are after all. They cannot even buy beer. THey were not professional but students. Imagine if he made these comments about some of our 19 year old female soldiers in Iraq?
7 Marshall Miles // Apr 12, 2007 at 7:39 am

More baloney sauce.

Not even adressing the comment Imus made…its was insensitive, mean and stupid.

The Rev. Sharpton and Jackson ARE right…its about the money. The only way Imus is pulled off is when advertisers start to drop.

I am afraid, what this has done, is set BACK, race relations, create more discord…

“Entertainment” “Political Comment” “Personal Opinion”

Imus is an entertainer, love him or hate him..He is not a ploitical commentator, he does not rant his personal opinion…he simply is an entertaienr that networks paid big bucks to and expected to be edgy, and controversial.

Then, execs shy away when he succedes adn gets as good, if not better ratings than CNN!!

Imus will be back, in some form or another, and his fans wioll listen and his detractors will not.

Three things have come out of this for me…

1) Al Roker lost a fan (Personalities should not weight in publicly), it can cost them viewers, with me it has, I will never look at Al the same way. He admits listening to Imus for all those years, and now, he (Al Roker) is above it…BALONEY SAUCE

2) If Obama is willing to weight in on this ( he sais he will no longer grace Imus’s show), how about weighing in and demanding something really important..like stopping the Iraq war, not firing Imus. He will never get my vote. BALONEY SAUCE

3) MSNBC showed typical American administration backbone, NONE! A stern fine of say $500,000 dollars and a month long suspention would have been acceptable. They to, have lost a viewer (except for COUNTDOWN)! BALONEY SAUCE.

This is not about racism, its about taste…and you can’t legislate that.

Period
8 fred // Apr 12, 2007 at 9:03 am

Imus #2:

A local radio personality in my home town of Stroudsburg PA was fired for making referance to the Imus fisaco, by having the listeners call in and say “I’m a nappy headed hoe” to win prizes or money.

He worked for the station for 17 years, and like Imus, devoted his free time to many local charities.

Coincidentally the Sister Station in the same building will continue to carry The Imus show when Don serves his suspension.

The local guy is fired… and for now.. the big guy keeps his job.

Pocono Record: “Gary in the Morning” Fired
9 James // Apr 12, 2007 at 9:52 am

“There is no such thing as bad publicity except your own obituary.” –Brendan Behan
10 Terry // Apr 12, 2007 at 10:09 am

Fred,
Someone famous was from Stroudsburg and I can’t remember who. People should stop listening that station and its sister because there are such hypocrites running them.

Marshall,
Great points, all. MSNBC comes up smelling worse even than Imus. They are shocked — SHOCKED — that he would say something like this. They knew what they were getting into when they decided to simulcast his radio show 10 years ago. This is a business decision on their part and to cast it as anything else is disingenuous at best.
11 Sharon Brisnehan // Apr 12, 2007 at 11:28 am

Don Imus! Iâ€™ll miss your show! It was fun, informative, and yes, you have done a lot of really good things with your money and influence, which you brought to the publics attention on your program.
But, as the mother of two young white boys who, God willing, will grow to be two old white men someday, a precedent has been set that it is not acceptable, to use racist and sexist language in this country. Iâ€™d like to thank you Mr. Imus for unwittingly making this point very clear. Now it is our responsibility to continue the conversation in our communities and our families.
12 Marshall Miles // Apr 12, 2007 at 12:19 pm

This is an email I sent to MSNBC/NBC

Count me out. No longer will I tune into MSNBC or NBC.

Why?

The inept, pathetic way MSNBC, and its parent company NBC handled this whole matter.
If the networks response were honest, true, and on target, they would have reacted swiftly to this incident..by either firing Imus immediatly, by fining him and pulling his show off-air immediatly.

But no…

The pathetic, spineless executuves at MSNBC and NBC make the deciosion on econimics! They wait to see which way the economic wind is blowing, and then make the decision. A decision based not on the remark, not on the stupidity of the remark, but on just plain dollars and cents. Please do not insult me by telling me the determining factor was 30 employees! When does the boardroom ever listen to its employees, thats a joke.

You have about as much credibility as a network, as the Bush administration has credibility on weapons of mass destruction..none.

You hire Don Imus to get ratings, let him do his sthick for over 10 years..he gets you ratings..beating CNN, and then you chastise and fire him for doing exactly what you wanted?

This whole issue is not a matter of race…but a matter of taste. Its also a generational issue, do you really think that Rev. Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton speak for young, black America?

Leaving the Imus remark aside, it was rude, mean and stupid…your network comes out loking the worse in this. You acted soley on profits in the first place, and then you acted on a possible lack of profits in the end, and then try to spin it as responsible broadcasting.

Some great journalists and executives you are. A fine example for future journalists and executives.

Trying to legislate taste just won’t work.

And people wonder why network ratings are dropping!

Well, I can do wthout MSNBC. As a matter of fact, I can do withut NBC as well.

Click..you are gone.

Marshall Miles
Tri-State Public Communications, Inc
http://catv6.com
http://robinhoodradio.com
http://am1020whdd.com
13 Doug Richardson // Apr 12, 2007 at 1:24 pm

One doesn’t normally look to Time Magazine for insightful writing any more, but…

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1609490-2,00.html
14 Patrick Sullivan, Zombie Hunter // Apr 12, 2007 at 4:08 pm

“In America, a knock is just a plug that lets itself in the back door.”

– Budd Schulberg, “The Harder They Fall” (1947)

Imus will land on his feet. It might take a little while, but he will. There is no way CBS radio is going to let all those millions walk away.

I’m finding the mad scramble of Imus guests to distance themselves from the program amusing. At least Ana Marie Cox had the guts to say she decided to put up with the locker room stuff in return for the exposure.

Earlier this afternoon MSBNC had a horse stuck in the mud, a rescue operation in progress and a helicopter overhead giving us the play-by-play. I thought for a moment we had a new crisis and we could forget about Imus, but no.

Equists. I am outraged they didn’t spend more time on that horse.
15 Marshall Miles // Apr 12, 2007 at 5:23 pm

This is getting to be a pile on lovefest for the suits at the networks!!!

And now CBS follows suit. Cha-ching…its not about the comment, its about money.

Lets see if CBS records puls all of the music off thier CBS records label that has the word “ho” in the lyrics….

Uh, I don’t think so…

Hypocricial, backboneless executives…

Now I can stopwatching CBS as well (thats not hard, I did not watch much of them to begin with..)
16 Terrence McCarthy // Apr 12, 2007 at 5:36 pm

Patrick Sullivan makes an excellent point. That horse! Stuck in the mud, it represents much. How we all get stuck in the mud of these stories, about Scott and Lacy, Anna Nicole, et al. And now Imus.

As I write this, I’m watching the NBC Senior White House correspondent sitting in for Matthews on Hardball. Most of the show he’s been asking others what they think of Imus. I’m waiting for someone to have the guts to ask Gregory: ” Whaddyou think? You who were a regular on the now defunct show.
17 Marshall Miles // Apr 12, 2007 at 6:18 pm

The reason this story has become important is the following…and I say this as someone who believes that mainstream media is all to powerful, someone who started a non-profit local access tv station, an independent internet radio station, and now an on-air non-profit, independent am radio station…

Media moguls, executives ahve been waiting for a long time to “get even” with Imus. He has, for better or worse, been a loose cannon on an ever more controled media…television and radio. The major networks feed you the info they want you to have..the major radio station play you the music they want you to hear…people have been looking for a long time to have Imus have his comeuppance.

Well, he gave them the opening, and they have pounced..not even letting him finish the telethon he started!

This has nothing to do with the comment that lead to this…this has become a media lynching plain and simple. Payback…

Just remember…what goes around, comes around.
18 Michael Flint // Apr 12, 2007 at 8:04 pm

The cloud over Imus tends to make us forget about the good things he has done …

From FOXNEWS.COM …

“The news came down in the middle of Imus’ Radiothon, which has raised more than $40 million since 1990. The Radiothon had raised more than $1.3 million Thursday before Imus learned that he lost his job.

“This may be our last Radiothon, so we need to raise about $100 million,” Imus cracked at the start of the event.

Volunteers were getting about 200 more pledges per hour than they did last year, with most callers expressing support for Imus, said Tony Gonzalez, supervisor of the Radiothon phone bank. The event benefited Tomorrows Children’s Fund, the CJ Foundation for SIDS and the Imus Ranch.”

Check out these good causes … And think … Did what he said really hurt anyone that bad???? Words …

What happens to these kids now?
19 Doug Richardson // Apr 12, 2007 at 9:15 pm

Sharpton will make sure those poor, maligned children get plenty of (expensive) therapy.
20 Terry // Apr 12, 2007 at 9:32 pm

LOL. Yah, Doug. He really helped out Tawana Brawley.
21 Patrick Sullivan, Zombie Hunter // Apr 12, 2007 at 10:27 pm

Hey Marshall, I can be irascible and occasionally funny, I’m a recovering drunk, I do good interviews, and I desperately need a haircut. I think we have a match for the evening drive-time slot!

(I don’t have a trophy wife and a ranch for sick kids, but I’m working on it.)
22 Doug Richardson // Apr 12, 2007 at 11:25 pm

The melodrama continues to feed on itself:

“Meanwhile the Rutgers women’s basketball team appeared Thursday on the Oprah Winfrey show to discuss the controversy. “Not only did he steal our dreams, he hurt our character of Rutgers University, our state, and all who have been associated,” Rutgers Head Coach C. Vivian Stringer said on the show.”

One misguided old fool goes too far with one joke and now it’s “He stole your dreams?”

Taking any bets that it won’t stop here? That slurping sound you hear is the lawyers licking their chops.
23 Marshall Miles // Apr 13, 2007 at 6:51 am

Patrick…I had thought of offering Imus a spot on WHDD…but I fear he would turn it down for the same reason you would…no pay!!!

The door is open for both you and Imus!

Hell, he should start his own network, have no suits to deal with!! I bet he would have a strong network put together fairly quickly..

But the hate backlash I talked about in earlier posts has started already…the Rutgers Girls are receiving thousands of pieces of hate mail now.

This will set back race relations, freedom of speech, etc, etc, years. It has now officialy spun way out of anyones control.
24 fred // Apr 13, 2007 at 10:29 am

If anyone has a chance to watch the episode of “The Family Guy” titled PTV where peter starts his own TV station to escape from the FCC’s rules of all the other stations he loves.

It’s seems appropriate for the times.

and wow.. 24 comments… have we hit the record for your page yet, terry?
25 Terry // Apr 13, 2007 at 6:07 pm

Fred,

This one about Falls Village from March 23 has 41 comments (another one added just now). But 24 is quite healthy, thank you.

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