Monday, April 09, 2007

Can This Be The End of Imus? - Vol. 3 Issue 46

Shock jock Don Imus has been a national staple of the “morning drive” timeslot for a generation. He started in the late 1960s and carved out a bizarre and extremely profitable niche. He and his posse created a show designed to offend EVERYONE. They invented shock radio and they do it “better” than anyone. And now their business model may have outlived its usefulness. Imus’s comment last week about the Rutgers women’s basketball team has created a perfect storm of outrage and umbrage, and not just from blacks. Imus’s corporate employers, MSNBC and CBS, have responded by suspending him for 2 weeks, starting April 16th. As for Imus, he has spent the last 4 days apologizing and hoping that the furor dies down. His appearance yesterday on Al Sharpton’s radio show has become an instant classic in public mea culpas. In the meantime, Imus’s terrible comments made him the subject of network news analysis. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are calling for his head. They may get it.

What is really going on here? Like most crises, this meltdown didn’t happen without warning. There was a consistent pattern of verbal abuse and ridicule of blacks, especially by “Imus in the Morning” producer Bernard McGuirk. Things really took a bad turn when McGurk started doing a routine in which he pretended to be Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans. These routines were consistently offensive and I am surprised there was no organized protest about them. It is true that the Imus crew said mean things about everyone. However, the comments about the Rutgers women were just too much. This leaves us with some very difficult questions. Should Imus be fired because he said something offensive? Isn’t it up to his audience to decide if his comments were so offensive as to require him to be silenced? And where is the line between free speech and hate speech? Maybe this incident will finally inspire some honest discussion about America’s biggest problem, inherent pervasive racism.

Say it loud!

Savant