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Imus is silenced, for now

CBS Radio fires him after a public outcry over the shock jock's racial slur last week.

By Eric Deggans
Published April 13, 2007

CBS Radio fired Don Imus Thursday, a day after NBC News dismissed the veteran shock jock for uttering a racial slur on his show last week.

Thursday's move came on the same day CBS officials met with civil rights advocates who had been urging Imus' firing since he called the Rutgers University women's basketball team "nappy headed hos" during an April 4 broadcast.

But CBS officials said their decision was not solely a reaction to that meeting. CBS president Les Moonves also cited "the effect language like this has on young people," along with negative reaction from CBS employees.

"One thing is for certain: This is about a lot more than Imus," read a memo by Moonves circulated to CBS employees Thursday. "He has flourished in a culture that permits a certain level of objectionable expression that hurts and demeans a wide range of people. In taking him off the air, I believe we take an important and necessary step not just in solving a unique problem, but in changing that culture."

What Moonves didn't mention was the sponsors who had backed out of Imus' program, including major advertisers such as General Motors, American Express and Procter & Gamble. CBS's decision immediately cancels the show at 61 stations - along with $15-million in annual revenues - following a move Wednesday by MSNBC to stop simulcasting his radio program on cable TV.

Bryan Monroe, president of the National Association of Black Journalists, was one of the early advocates for Imus' firing last week. He echoed Moonves' assertion that the explosive attention paid to this controversy suggests that the public is increasingly intolerant of racist statements in mainstream media.

"We don't revel in anyone, especially a broadcaster, losing his job," said Monroe, calling from his office in Chicago where he edits the black focused Ebony and Jet magazines. "But something is happening in America. There is an opportunity for us in the media to figure out how we can lift the conversation up instead of dragging it down."

Full disclosure: This writer serves as chairman of the media monitoring committee for the NABJ, alerting the group's leadership to emerging media issues they may choose to address. The media committee does not set policy for the organization.

The growing furor even inspired Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz, who had shrugged off Imus' insults to his own Jewish heritage, to reconsider his initial reaction. Earlier this week, Kurtz suggested that the numerous politicians, celebrities and media stars on Imus' program were fair game for the radio personality's barbs.

"He certainly has, in bad attempts at humor, said bigoted things over the years ... that perhaps some of us were too quick to overlook," Kurtz said.

Still, Kurtz said, "I do think in the rush to condemn him, people are losing sight of the fact that there's much more vile stuff said over the air every day."

Kurtz said the most crushing criticism this week probably came out of the emotional press conference Tuesday by the Rutgers women's basketball team, where the poised athletes and their passionate coach for the first time publicly talked about how Imus had hurt them.

The team met with Imus at the New Jersey governor's mansion Thursday, and members appeared on Oprah Winfrey's talk show.

"There was an explosion here that really intensified when the country got to meet these amazing students athletes at Rutgers - which made the 'ho' slur sting all that much more," Kurtz added. "There reached a point where this almost was not about Imus anymore, but a debate about race and decency, and a sense that only by banishing him from the public square could the forces of decency triumph."

At WTAN-1340 AM in Clearwater, co-owner Lola Wagenvoord was upset to see a popular show disappear from her airwaves with little notice and few clues about what would replace him.

"We're sick here. ... I don't think this is quite right," Wagenvoord said. "I don't agree with what Imus said. ... But this hurts everybody."

For some experts, Imus' firing marked the end of an era - one of the last nationally-known shock jock broadcasters pushed off the airwaves. Imus, who is 66, has been on radio for 35 years.

"It's such a huge overreaction," said Joel Denver, president and publisher of the radio trade Web site All Access.com. "What he said was absolutely wrong - but to pay for his job with something ... that he apologized for .... Were sponsors upset? Yes. Would they have eventually come back? Yes."

Imus' future may include a move to satellite radio, where shock jocks such as Howard Stern and Tampa's Bubba the Love Sponge fled after the government cracked down on free "terrestrial" radio's content.

But Stern, a longtime Imus enemy who moved to Sirius satellite radio in early 2006, could resist his hiring there. And because the satellite radio services XM and Sirius are seeking government approval to merge, they may not want the controversy.

Although some have urged protestors to take on explicit rap artists or pundits such as Rush Limbaugh next, Monroe couldn't say what the next step might be.

"A lot of folks will be doing a lot of talking over the next few days," he said. "Determining the next step is up to all of us ... not just the media, but all us citizens."

Eric Deggans can be reached at (727) 893-8521 or deggans@sptimes.com Read his blog at blogs.tampabay.com/media.

[Last modified April 12, 2007, 23:44:05]