Life after Imus

Jeff Jarvis over at BuzzMachine has some good thoughts on the Imus affair—or as he refers to it, Imus’ “macaca moment.”

He admits he’s no fan of Imus and applauds his firing. He believes that in this case, Imus’ true character was revealed and that firing was something he’s had coming for a long time.

However, he warns against setting black & white, zero tolerance standards. He points out that people are human and make mistakes. Instances like this won’t always demonstrate a fatal character flaw, but will sometimes be just an honest screw-up. The problem is that these screw-ups will be magnified 100 times on cable news and the Internet.

...Imus is a good case for discussion because what he said was truly offensive, it did reveal his essential character, and he met his justice beyond the sin of that one moment. But that won’t always be the case and even in the fast-forward society of internet and cable, we need to be able to judge thoughtfully and independently which are macaca moments and which are merely mistakes.

The fall of Don Imus

Well, this Don Imus thing sure has snowballed, hasn’t it? CBS just announced that the I-Man has been fired from his radio show—less than 24 hours after MSNBC cut ties with him.

Look, I don’t like what Imus said. I think what made it even worse was his comments weren’t directed at a public figure, but some ordinary college kids who don’t live in the public eye.

I completely agree with the decision to pull him from MSNBC. There is no place for comments like that on a news network. Imus’ defense has been that his is a comedy-entertainment program. Fine. Then get it off the news channel.

Personally, I always thought watching his radio program on TV was like watching paint dry. But I know others who enjoyed it.

Now, is it right that he lost his radio show? I don’t know. Certainly, I’ve heard worse things on the radio. I was once a regular Howard Stern listener. I used to tell people that if you don’t like Stern, then don’t listen. I think I would have said the same thing in this case.

But the writing was clearly on the wall. On Mike & Mike this morning on ESPN Radio, the comment was made that this was not a black or white issue, but a green one. Radio is a business. Once the major advertisers start pulling out, what incentive is there to keep him on?

So the powers that be have stood up and made an example of Imus. Okay. Just don’t stop there. Let’s see Al Sharpton and company put the same kind of pressure on the record labels and radio programmers that promote the hip hop music full of the same kind of language that brought Imus down.

As for Imus, I doubt we’ve heard the last of him. Anyone want to place bets on how long it will be before he turns up on satellite radio?