Do you like what you see?
Don Imus held a mirror up in America's collective face, and I'm guessing it makes a lot of us want to turn away.
MSNBC execs, in announcing their decision to can Imus' simulcasts after what the talk host said about the Rutgers women's basketball team, say it wasn't this latest incident that prompted the move, but rather a pattern of such behavior.
Why, then, didn't the plug get pulled sooner? Did it take a sponsorship stampede way from the I-man to give the network a conscience? To ask what MSNBC employees thought about their colleague?
What about the millions who worked their way toward Imus every morning? His numbers were strong, and he apparently was gaining on CNN in terms of a.m. audience. They must've liked what they heard--the "pattern" must've been pretty palatable (in the interest of full disclosure, yours truly listened to I-Tunes Imus podcasts each day on the way into work--they featured only his interviews, and I never remember hearing anything even remotely approaching what happened last week).
Where were the "professionally pissed", the Reverends Sharpton and Jackson before this? Did they only show up after the latest Imus contretemps started getting national media traction? Why aren't they going after rappers and fellow African Americans who demean and degrade women in rap videos and lyrics? After all, where did the word "ho" come from, anyway? Listen to Sharpton's explanation in this column--you can see the video itself via a link at the end of it:
I wonder what would've happened to Imus had he been given the chance to return to MSNBC. Do you think his audience would've come back? Would it have grown even larger, spurred on by a "what-will-he-say-next" mindset? How about his guests, which included A-list politicians and network news types--would they have wanted to be associated with such an infamous host? And, what about the sponsors? Would those who fled this week have returned after the hub-bub died down and the ratings spiked up?
I guess the I-man couldn't hold the mirror up long enough for us to look at that.
1 comment:
Keep up the good work.
Post a Comment