True dat... But if Al and Jesse didn't do what they did, would he be fired? If you are right about the reason he got fired, why not do it in 1996? He was saying the same things then. Or 1986? When he was saying things then high on cocaine and drunk out of his mind? They let him on the radio then. Isn't that worthy of being fired? Show up at your job drunk or high. What happens? Ooooooooooooodles of hypocrisy 'round this issue.
In 1996 sponsors weren't pulling out of his show. Sharpton and Jackson might've stoked the situation but if the sponsors hadn't pulled out CBS probably wouldn't have cared. For a company like CBS the marketplace of ideas really is a marketplace. While Imus might've been making money for them for years the conditions in the marketplace changed this past week where he was a liability to their profitability. No doubt there is but CBS has as much right to fire Imus as we do to sell a stock that suddenly is losing value, even if the business plan of that company hasn't changed.
Yes but those are not the reasons CBS is giving. They are claiming that it is thier duty to change the world by silencing people. That sounds kind of like censorship to me. Various reports indicate that the Imus show generated about $20 million in 2006 ad sales.
What does Pacman have to do with Imus? I didnt see Imus getting arrested 4 or 5 times in the past year.
You are right there are key differences. One guy is banned from his whole industry (and industry with special legal protections against competition), the other guy is free to find another employer in a competitive marketplace. And what does Pacman's arrests have to do with his job performance? Nothing, unless he is found guilty and put in jail. I have never heard of a single fan decide or not decide to go to a game because a player got arrested. Now Imus comments are directly related to his job. (see the excellent point above that this event has changed his marketbality to CBS, and I believe the poster is right on) And I am sure a majority of CBS sponsors said can Imus or we are leaving. What keeps getting overlooked is it is different when persons from ones own group uses slurs than when another group does it. Particularly when that slur came from another time when there were real legal and non-legal barriers to keep the minority in poverty and powerless. Pick a slur for Black, Asian, Latino, Native American--same deal. We need Charles Barkley here to explain this rather simple point--the meaning is different when a black person says ------ than when a white does the same. The context is different, the meaning is different. Now many in some circles when people well know each other and understand each other it can come off fine (Almu, a non-Black to some friends). But that is not the same as saying them in public or to someone you don't know, the context has already been established.
cmon pacman's just being thrown in here because of the black white thing. his getting in trouble was obviously affecting team chemistry in turn which affects performance of the team as a whole on the field. the player conduct thing was backed by the player's union, theres no black or white about it. if you feel that what imus did was worse than pacman getting people shot up in vegas because he felt the need to flash some cash, then that's fine, that's your priorities.
I wonder if Chris Rock did the "You might be a RedNeck If . . . " jokes in the middle of an all white audience would it get the same response as Jeff Foxworthy gets . . . something tells me that it would be different Rocket River
Do you have anything to support that Pac Man was affecting team chemistry? From everything I read, the Titans were in love with him, as he really helped them win games. I still think Imus woulda been canned even if Sharpton and Jackson stayed away. Sharpton and Jackson weren't the reason a lot of folks at NBC said keep him or me. Sharpton and Jackson aren't the reason that companies pulled their ad dollars, which is the only reason he was fired.
Rutgers coach, players accept Imus’s apology Deidre Imus says fired radio host told team ‘I feel awful’ about comments The Associated Press Updated: 12:11 p.m. ET April 13, 2007 NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - Rutgers women’s basketball coach C. Vivian Stringer said Friday the team had accepted radio host Don Imus’ apology. She said he deserves a chance to move on but hopes the furor his racist and sexist insult caused will be a catalyst for change. “We, the Rutgers University Scarlet Knight basketball team, accept — accept — Mr. Imus’ apology, and we are in the process of forgiving,” Stringer read from a team statement a day after the women met personally with Imus and his wife. “We still find his statements to be unacceptable, and this is an experience that we will never forget,” she said. The team had just played for the NCAA national championship last week and lost when Imus, on his nationally syndicated radio show, called the players “nappy-headed hos.” The statement outraged listeners and set off a national debate about taste and tolerance. It also led his firing by CBS on Thursday. “These comments are indicative of greater ills in our culture,” Stringer said. “It is not just Mr. Imus, and we hope that this will be and serve as a catalyst for change. Let us continue to work hard together to make this world a better place.” Imus was in the middle of a two-day radio fundraiser for children’s charities when he was dropped by CBS. On Friday, his wife took over the show and also talked about the meeting with the Rutgers players. “They gave us the opportunity to listen to what they had to say and why they’re hurting and how awful this is,” author Deirdre Imus said. “He feels awful,” she said. “He asked them, ‘I want to know the pain I caused, and I want to know how to fix this and change this.”’ Deirdre Imus also said that the Rutgers players have been receiving hate e-mail, and she demanded that it stop. She told listeners “if you must send e-mail, send it to my husband,” not the team. “I have to say that these women are unbelievably courageous and beautiful women,” she said. Stringer declined to discuss the hate mail Friday. Rutgers team spokeswoman Stacey Brann said the team had received “two or three e-mails” but had also received “over 600 wonderful e-mails.” The team members respected Imus’ willingness to apologize, but they also wanted him to understand how they were hurt, said the Rev. DeForest Soaries, Stringer’s pastor, who joined the meeting. Imus tried to explain what he meant, “but there was really no explanation that they could understand,” Soaries said on NBC’s “Today” show. The cantankerous Imus, once named one of the 25 Most Influential People in America by Time magazine and a member of the National Broadcasters Hall of Fame, was one of radio’s original shock jocks. His career took flight in the 1970s and with a cocaine- and vodka-fueled outrageous humor. After sobering up, he settled into a mix of highbrow talk about politics and culture, with locker room humor sprinkled in. Critics have said his remark about the Rutgers women was just the latest in a line of objectionable statements by the ringmaster of a show that mixed high-minded talk about politics and culture with crude, locker-room humor. Imus apologized on the air late last week and also tried to explain himself before the Rev. Al Sharpton’s radio audience, appearing alternately contrite and combative. But many of his advertisers still bailed in disgust, particularly after the Rutgers women spoke publicly of their hurt. On Wednesday, a week after the remark, MSNBC said it would no longer televise the show. CBS fired Imus Thursday from the radio show that he has hosted for nearly 30 years. “He has flourished in a culture that permits a certain level of objectionable expression that hurts and demeans a wide range of people,” CBS Corp. chief executive Leslie Moonves said in a memo to his staff. Sharpton praised Moonves’ decision Friday and said it was time to change the culture of publicly degrading other people.“I think we’ve got to really used this to really stop this across the board,” he told CBS’s “The Early Show.” Some Imus fans, however, considered the radio host’s punishment too harsh. Mike Francesa, whose WFAN sports show with partner Chris Russo is considered a possible successor to “Imus in the Morning,” said he was embarrassed by the company. “I’m embarrassed by their decision. It shows, really, the worst lack of taste I’ve ever seen,” he said. Losing Imus will be a financial hit to CBS Radio, which also suffered when Howard Stern left for satellite radio. The program earns about $15 million in annual revenue for CBS, which owns Imus’ home radio station WFAN-AM and manages Westwood One, the company that syndicates the show nationally WFAN. The show’s charity fundraiser had raised more than $1.3 million Thursday before Imus learned he had lost his job. The total had grown Friday to more than $2.3 million for Tomorrows Children’s Fund, CJ Foundation for SIDS and the Imus Ranch, Deirdre Imus said. The annual event has raised more than $40 million since 1990. “This may be our last radiothon, so we need to raise about $100 million,” Don Imus had cracked at the start of the event. Volunteers were getting about 200 more pledges per hour Thursday than they did last year, with most callers expressing support for Imus, said phone bank supervisor Tony Gonzalez. The event benefited Tomorrows Children’s Fund, the CJ Foundation for SIDS and the Imus Ranch. Imus’ troubles have also affected his wife, the founder of a medical center that studies links between cancers and environmental hazards whose book “Green This!” came out this week. Her promotional tour was called off “because of the enormous pressure that Deirdre and her family are under,” said Simon & Schuster publicist Victoria Meyer. The Deirdre Imus Environmental Center for Pediatric Oncology in Hackensack, N.J., works to identify and control exposures to environmental hazards that may cause adult and childhood cancers. Imus Ranch in New Mexico invites children who have been ill to spend time on a working cattle ranch. ----- Now, lets see if the advertisers see this for what it is and when Imus comes back from suspension, we will see if this hurts or helps this awful situation.
Effectively it is censorship. You have a small group of people who are creating enough noise to put pressure on CBS to pull a PROFITABLE show. You can say that it's just CBS making a decision. It's like an employer firing someone not for performance but because someone has accused him of being a communist, and that group is going to say the employer supports communism unless they fire the guy. CBS didn't unilaterally move to fire the guy - it was after all these people called for CBS to fire him that they felt they didn't have a choice. Especially when a former exec got involved. CBS just stepped aside and let the mob fire the guy. It's censorship by the mob mentality. If it wasn't for guys like Al and Jesse - CBS would have probably kept him on.
CBS made a move for their pocketbooks plain and simple. They wouldn't care what Al, Jesse or anyone else woulda said until they started to lose ad money. I think that woulda happened no matter what Al & Jesse said. People didn't suddenly get pissed about those comments once Al & Jesse showed up.
I don't think it is wrong that they fired him, but I think their pocketbooks would be hurt more by firing him than keeping him. His show on both MSNBC and CBS radio show were doing well ratings wise. It would have made financial sense to keep him.
How is not providing their own platform to a guy the same as censorship? So now, unless you provide the platform for someone to speak, you are censoring them? He can keep saying what he wants. Why do they have a duty to broadcast it all over the country?
