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The nightmare is partly over: MSNBC has finally decided to drop Don Imus's radio show simulcast effective immediately. The NBC Nightly News actually had "breaking news" about the decision, and here's the statement from NBC News president Steve Capus:
Effective immediately, MSNBC will no longer simulcast the "Imus in the Morning" radio program. This decision comes as a result of an ongoing review process, which initially included the announcement of a suspension. It also takes into account many conversations with our own employees. What matters to us most is that the men and women of NBC Universal have confidence in the values we have set for this company. This is the only decision that makes that possible. Once again, we apologize to the women of the Rutgers basketball team and to our viewers. We deeply regret the pain this incident has caused.TVNewser has the internal memo to NBC staffers:
"Over the course of the last week many of you have reached out to me and expressed your strong viewpoints on the Don Imus situation. I've had countless conversations, e-mail exchanges and phone calls with people throughout this company. I've heard you loud and clear. Therefore, we are announcing tonight that MSNBC will no longer simulcast the Imus radio program...The new question is whether CBS will join suit and fire Imus, but apparently his radio show generates $20 million in revenue. The Times reported that MSNBC made at least $50 million from ads during Imus in the Morning.My primary concern has been and always will be the integrity of this division. We are the guardians of the good name of NBC News -- each and every one of us. There has been a trust placed in us. We must honor and respect this trust. That, in short is why we have taken this action."
The timeline:
- Wednesday, April 4, Don Imus and his producer Bernard McGuirk call the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy headed hos" and "hardcore hos"
- Friday, April 6, Imus apologizes, the National Association of Black Journalists demand that he be fired
- Saturday and Sunday, April 7-8, the Reverend Al Sharpton, Reverend Jesse Jackson, NOW, and other groups join in criticism of Imus
- Monday, April 9, CBS and MSNBC decide to suspend Imus for two weeks; Imus also appears on Sharpton's radio program
- Tuesday, April 10, the Rutgers women's basketball team give a press conference, Imus advertisers falls from the MSNBC simulcast
- Wednesday, April 11, more advertisers fall from MSNBC, NBC decides to stop airing his show
Oh, and today, Snoop Dogg weighed in about the controversy to MTV News:
Admittedly, Snoop and some of his peers have called women "b----es" and "ho's" in their lyrics, but as the Dogg put it Tuesday afternoon (April 10), there is no parallel to what Imus said.[Via Newsbusters]"It's a completely different scenario," said Snoop, barking over the phone from a hotel room in L.A. "[Rappers] are not talking about no collegiate basketball girls who have made it to the next level in education and sports. We're talking about ho's that's in the 'hood that ain't doing sh--, that's trying to get a n---a for his money. These are two separate things. First of all, we ain't no old-ass white men that sit up on MSNBC [the cable network home to Imus] going hard on black girls. We are rappers that have these songs coming from our minds and our souls that are relevant to what we feel. I will not let them mutha----as say we in the same league as him."
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Well, it took MSNBC a week, but at least it made the right decision. It probably makes it easier for the NBC news personalities - not to mention other people with stuff to promote - not to go on the program, too.
YAY! NBC.
first the black donelly's get's cancelled, now this.
You really got this TV watcher's attention. Keep that Thursday lineup with Scrubs and 30 Rock.
of course, The Office.
I'll forgive you for Dateline.
Kudos to all at NBC.
Al Roker, Matt Lauer, Jerry Seinfeld, why Jerry? I saw him at Union SQ park and he's really a nice guy.
And, Ron Allen. Now I await what Keith Olbermann will say about this as he mentioned he'll withhold comment until he hears more from Imus and MSNBC management because he too has a show on MSNBC.
right on!
right on!
Was Al Sharpton ever fired for manipulating a desperate, attention-seeking woman into lying about being sexually assaulted by a white man?
Words, no matter how hateful, are *just* words. Had he actively tried to destroy someone's life, as Reverend Al has (and grew famous for) he would have been left alone, apparently.
Couldn't they just have waited for Imus to die? Judging from that picture, that couldn't be more than a year from now.
www.saveimus.com
Sharpton is a racist
I forgot, I applaud all the advertisers who pulled that ads from the show.
Procter and Gamble, Staples and others. I personally thank you.
spineless cowards.
Lets see if they are consistent and ban every gangsta rapper from Leno, Conan and SNL.
i am so glad they made this decision. the more i thought about imus' comments, the angrier they made me.
one thing that has increasingly surprised me is that imus's producer bernard has not been fired yet, even though he used the word "jigaboo" in his part of that conversation. how can you say a word like that and not get fired?? and why has that part of the incident gone unmentioned in recent days (as far as i've seen)? i guess the press is squeamish about repeating that word, and so that angle has been neglected. i wish someone would pick that part of the story up again and others would start pressuring WFAN to fire the producer.
Al roker called for McGurk's sp? firing in a statement yesterday in the NBC Blog, you'll also find Ron Allen's response.
NBC YOU ROCK! 30 Rock.
Bravo.. let's just drive racist language underground!! Keep it off the airwaves.
Let people continue to hear it on the street where it won't face public outrage! Let kids continue to hear it on the playground where it won't face the reaction of a national audience.
That's where it belongs... where it won't contribute to any national conversation..
Hey, ADM. When the fellow said "Jiggaboo", they were discussing the dance number from Spike Lee's School Daze that featured the "Jiggaboos" and the "Wannabees". Can you accuse a white man of racism for quoting Spike Lee?
what a big deal out of nothing, tempest in teapot, piece of garbage news item this is. All tantrums and political haymaking, no real substance. Imus makes a living being a curmudgeon and saying cranky things. I'm all for holding people accountable for real acts.. but calling someone a nappy haired ho? Please. Dumbaz whiney, oversensitive girls making something out of nothing. Makes me want to bitch slap them. Oops.. I just said bitch. Is it okay for me to say it if I am one? Whew... glad we cleared that up.
Chris Russo and others, you're on notice.
America is tired of ranting and yelling for entertainment.
Nightmare?
PLEASE!!!
Iraq
I think were too much time dignifying a stupid comment by Imus...and maybe magnifying the problem by publicizing the comments of folks like: National Association of Black Journalists, Reverend Al Sharpton, Reverend Jesse Jackson, NOW, etc.
Let's hear comments from the real winners! the girls who played in and won the game!!
please
tom
nappy headed hos.
You can't defend what Imus did. He made these comments and used idiots on his show to make these types of comments too many times before, but firing him on the eve of the big charity telethon seems like a pretty poor choice. MSNBC originally had the guts to hold off the suspension until Monday to allow the charities to not lose out, but now they reverse course.
So, in the end you can add those charities to the list of things that got hurt by this whole mess and that is terrible.
And, Snoops' comments make me sick. Hopefully, they don't get washed over in all of this.
Nightmare?
PLEASE!!!
Iraq is a nightmare. The Bush Administration is a nightamre. Our climate issues are a nightmare.
This is a distraction.
The difference is important.
"If this is all Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have to worry about, then the civil rights movement must be in a lot better shape than I thought." --- Bill Maher
Here's what I'm getting out of this... a guy makes a bad mistake, a real bad mistake, he apologizes, he says over and over how do I make this right, I want to make this right... and the collective response is "fuck you."
And make no mistake, if this was a moral issue with NBC they would have fired him immediately. They stuck their finger in the wind like the gutless corporate wonders that they are and made a decision based on appearances and money.
I'll say it again... if Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter or Michael Savage said this, they would have been lauded by their audiences, would never have thought it a mistake, and their ratings would have jumped twenty points. And none of them would be apologizing. Imus tries to do the right thing after making a mistake (and admitting up to it) and he's slammed to the ground.
All of us on the left should start to do a much better job choosing who we assault.
No one will miss Imus...he deserves to be forgotten.
Speaking of deserving to be forgotten: Al Sharpton.
He's absolutely racist and exploits the fears of those he purports to represent.
Also, someone should get a comment from him and see if he revised his views on the Duke men's lacrosse team.
@l0b0t. thanks -- i missed the reference. i'm not sure it gets him off the hook, given the context, but it's something to be considered.
What does this have to do with Sharpton? Does the Rev seek attention? YES. But let's not lose focus on what the issue is here. Don Imus, yes he's a "shock jock" and he is controversial but when is enough enough? He doesn't deserve to get fired but he should be forced to wash Sharpton's hair.
Though I am trying to follow this story, I honestly find Imus' strange facial hair way too distracting in pictures.
He reminds me of the Geico cavemen.
www.adweek.blogs.com/photos/uncategorized/caveman_3.jpg
Imus: who cares, minimum thirty years since it has mattered. Same with Stern, or any other jerk who believes that screaming can take the place of substance.
Meanwhile, though, tell me that Snoop & Co.'s never-ending, far-worse statements about their own sisterhood were all made for that group's betterment? Sure, just like the "gangstas" saying it's OK to shoot cops is only to help make John Law more alert whilst out on patrol. BTW glad Snoop had the composure after his court appearance -- for, what was it, trying to get on a plane with a gun, again? -- to "bark" into a phone. Model citizen. Quote him, though, quote him! Don't worry that he apparently cannot speak English.
Give me a break with this sh1t. These jackasses are asking ("axing") for the inevitable backlash, and they will get it, because I cannot be the only heretofore race-blind honky who has had enough -- ENOUGH -- of this crap.
oh my god. i agree with snoop dogg on something.
imus is a complete jerk and should be fired effective immediately.
This is Bush's fault. It should be obvious that he is trying to keep the country's attention away from the war in Iraq.
I seriously can't believe these talkbalks! I listened to more offensive lyrics on my ipod this morning on my way to the office. And Snoop, I'm glad you decide your decency values on the merits of those you are offending. Anyone else know this chorus,
"Anywhere I go a fly girl will please me, east to west college girls are easy"
Just say, 'I want black people to be able to use certain words that white people cannot' The honesty will be refreshing...
www.kansascity.com/159/story/66339.html
Imus isn’t the real bad guy
Instead of wasting time on irrelevant shock jock, black leaders need to be fighting a growing gangster culture.
By JASON WHITLOCK
Columnist
Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.
You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.
You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.
Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.
The bigots win again.
While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.
I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.
It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.
Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.
It’s embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.
I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.
But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.
I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.
Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.
Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.
But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.
In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?
I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?
When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim.
No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.
Has everyone lost thier minds? Doesn't anyone see the double standard that is so clear and apparant here? Imus made a joke . . . a bad joke. It was a small comment over a 30 year career!!! I am sure everyone here has said something stupid in their lifetime - you just didn't happen to be on tape. I am not an Imus fan but he is on the radio today RAISING MONEY FOR SICK CHILDREN!!! He has been doing this for over 15 years and raises $3M a year for this cause. What have all these rappers and "journalists" (and I use that term loosely to the people reporting this story) done for humanity. Also, this is such a non-story - what about Iraq, education, health care, literacy, and pollution just to name a few small issues that are taking a backseat to this ridiculous story. We need to defend free speech it is what seperates us from everyone else. Yes - Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and everyone else has the right to say what they want but no one needs to lose their job for this. "I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Voltaire
A good business decision, but morally stupid one. The context is what counts and Imus is no hater of black women athletes. Look at his work post-Katrina...certainly some black women athletes from NOLA should be standing up for him. Oh wait, that would force them to take a politically unpopular stance.
The whole situation is stupid.
I'd say it's a very good business and moral decision.
We must start somewhere and this is where it's going to start.
And, to think Easter was just last week.
what ever happened to practice what you preach.
Meanwhile the real bigots are laughing their white asses off. As are their listeners.
The latest is that Ana Marie Cox, the former Wonkette that built a career on saying offensive things amidst a culture that isn't welcoming to them.....anyway, she says why she will no longer do the Imus show.....
time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1609447,00.html
Imus' stupid comments or not, this may be the bloggersphere's biggest sellout moment.
Meanwhile the real bigots are laughing their white asses off. As are their listeners.
"what ever happend to practice what you preach?"
Whatever happened to Turn the Other Cheek?
No turning the other cheek when I Ass has been doing this for 30 years. The only reason why it wasn't mentioned was that it wasn't checked. He's been calling people "gorillas" for ages.
His luck just ran out. He should of stayed a "shock Jock" and not a faux news current events show, that would of been a better excuse.
I applaud Cal Ripken Jr., I applaud GM, I applaud Staples.
I suppose you like to hear your mother, daughter or sister called a whore.
I've listened to the context, and I just can't figure out how "nappy-headed hos" was supposed to be a joke. Maybe he didn't actually mean it, sure, but a joke? Not so much. I'll buy "playful insult", but not "joke". And as a playful insult, it fails; it's not playful, merely insulting.
And while I'm not supporting Snoop Dogg in any way--I think he's much more reprehensible, in just about every way--there's a difference between making comments like Imus's about specific people and rapping/singing generally offensive lyrics.
Too bad Sharpton has no influence over the rappers who coin such terms as disparaging "nappy-haired hos." And no amount of spin by Snoop Dogg can justify such characterizations.
Imus may be stupid but he's not criminal. However, Snoop Dogg is both.
Dick Cavett wrote a very interesting piece in the NY Times yesterday - here is a snippet from it:
"...Some of the seeming astonishment expressed about how well-spoken, attractive, articulate and self-possessed the basketball players are — all true — at times bordered a bit uncomfortably on Obama’s being called (surprisingly?) “articulate” and “clean.”
Would a white team be surprisingly articulate?
I don’t know all the questions to be asked about this. Some of them would be: Who said the words? What was the context? How damaging were the words meant to be, and how damaging were they in fact? What is known of the speaker? Is he a racist? Does he discriminate against black people? Has he ever done anything good for them?..."
I don't know about the Rutgers basketball team, but the people who comment on gothamist are surprisingly articulate compared with most internet message boards.
I AM IN FULL AGREEMENT... Mr. Don Imus' comments via public airways were appalling and irresponsible. HOWEVER, for him to lose his job and still allow the continuance of degrading and explicit lyrics blaring from hip-pop and rap stations across our country, makes no sense at all! We need this incident to make a difference NOW, to make changes effective NOW. If we aren't going to actively do something about the vulgarity pollution on our airways, then Don Imus will have lost his job in vain...
the president of rutgers, while introducing the captain of the team, explained that she is an excellent piano player. that seemed strange. should we be astonished. is she also "articulate."
So sad that "Anus" lose his job for voicing his opinion . I guess it's true what's happening in this country as far as our basic rights of speech . So I guess if I call all of those that support this firing a bunch "Whining,Wimpering, Colostomy bags" ! That would make me an enemy of preferred speech ?