Sure no one expects the US media to be anything but overhyped sensationalism anymore. That doesn't even pretend to describe how they've behaved this year with Anna Nicole, the Artist Formerly Known as Britney, a few others and now Don Imus.
The only reason I'm writing about it all is because based on recent events in my life I've been debating writing about race relations in the US. I still might write about it, it would be better than just writing about the Braves all the time. Anyway.
None of this is new with Don Imus, he's done race related jokes and insults for a long time or so I come to understand it. His recent remarks weren't overly racist but they were very thinly hidden race insults directed at college kids. I think he is an idiot for the remarks and I wouldn't listen to his show anyways.
I think him being fired is entirely up to his employer. I wouldn't rant about him being fired, if he worked for me I would fire him but I probably wouldn't have employed him to begin with. I think he has every right to say what he wants. I think his employer has every right to employee him if they want or fire him if they want (which they did).
None of that really isn't my point in this post. I've now heard from multiple people that him being fired hurts his free speech rights. Really? How exactly do you come to that conclusion. CBS and MSNBC both have every right to fire him, he cost both of them money. Sponsors were, for reasons all their own, pulling ads and costing his employers money. It doesn't matter why you do it, cost you employer enough money and watch your ass get fired.
The First Amendment does not allow you to say or write whatever you want. What it does do and for the most part pretty well is prevent the US government from making laws that hinder your freedom of speech. CBS and MSNBC are not obliged by the First Amendment to allow their employees to say whatever they want. They are sure not forced to keep an employee who is costing them money.
I even asked someone who was complaining about it another example. Did that person think it was okay if Google just decided to remove their blog based on what they wrote? That person said no, it would be hindering their free speech. Again, really? Google owns Blogger, they have no obligation to keep your blog if they don't like what is on it. Sure it would probably be a bad idea, it could get them a ton of bad PR. If they started doing that they should get a ton of bad PR. But they aren't required to keep blogs up based on the Bill of Rights.
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Here is where I stand on this. Les Moonves, chief goon at CBS, stated the following:
"There has been much discussion of the effect language like this has on our young people, particularly young women of color trying to make their way in this society. That consideration has weighed most heavily on our minds as we made our decision."
So instead of educating and cultivating SELF-ESTEEM in our young people, we have to coddle them and show them that if someone out there in the world has something bad to say about them, they will be punished. Why isn't the way to support these young women encouraging them to ignore the rantings of a cranky old man with a microphone?
The bottom line is this: if Imus is going to be sanctioned, cancel The Office, South Park, Family Guy, and on and on and on. A select group of people made this a political situation (because heaven knows we all need, as a society, to be told what to be angry about), which in turned scared advertisers and caused them to pull out, which in turn was deemed unacceptable by the idiot suits who care about nothing but the god damn bottom line and decided to cut their losses.
So let's review who wins here:
Imus' career? A hall of famer, a Marconi winner, 40 years in the business many of them BRILLIANT, in the crapper.
MSNBC? Half a million viewers every morning, and the advertisers appealing to a very lucritive demographic, gone.
CBS radio? See MSNBC
SIDS? Do many people know what SIDS IS? I can guarantee you that many who HAVE heard of it did so based on the work Imus has done that's garnered MILLIONS of dollars for the charity (among countless other charities, look up the Imus Ranch for children suffering from cancer sometime...) to find a cause and cure.
The Rutgers Women's Basketball team? In the end, an afterthought to the whole situation. Any platform they had to voice their opinions and be seen for the wonderful women I'm sure they are will now be swept aside.
Al Sharpton? We have a winner. Yay, a victory for a man whose agruably first real brush with national attention came in the Tawana Brawley incident, in which a young black girl claimed she was raped by a gang of white men. The racial furor with which Sharpton attacked the city of NY, the police, etc., split the city in half. Hey, guess what? Turned out the girl's claims were a hoax.
Score one for mass media creating a story and serving nothing but divisive interests yet again. The whole situation is absolute garbage. People really need to be in a position to define for themselves what offends them, and I'm tired of people's need to pussyfoot around ancient history. You want to get passed the mistakes of the past? Let them die. You want a free society? Let the society decide what it wants to hear. You want to hang a guy who's made a 40 year career on making fun of EVERYONE, including himself and his own people down to the residents of the very (predominantly white) town where he grew up, based on one comment? Okay Jesse Jackson, let's bring up you referring to New York City as HYMIETOWN in 1984, as a ridiculously derogatory reference to his perceived control by Jewish interests in the city.
Summation: All this self-promotion and money-first, hypocritical garbage makes me sick. The hypocrisy rampant in every aspect of our society is an absolute joke, and this is an absolutely perfect microcosm of why so many people just can't seem to give a crap anymore.
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