Homestar Runner Wiki Forum

I'm sure many of you have heard of what has happened to Don Imus in the past week. For those who don't know who he is, Don Imus is a legendary radio host. Last week he made some rather racist comments towards the Rutgers University Women's Basketball team. He was initially suspended for two weeks, but due to the mounting pressure from fans and sponsors, he was fired today from CBS Radio today. This is a day after MSNBC said would no longer air the Imus in the Morning show.

Here is the Wikipedia article.
Washington Post

Do you guys believe he should have been fired?

I think he should have been suspended. I don't think firing him was necessary, but then again the Almighty Dollar speaks louder than I ever could.

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The man was fired because Al Sharpton wanted his blood.

That bugs me. Imus said something stupid, apologized, and got the guillotine anyway.

Next time someone makes a stupid comment they might as well stand by it, I say.

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He made a stupid, racist comment and was punished for it. I don't see the problem. An apology doesn't automatically make it all better. There have to be consequences.

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Wrong.

He was fired because sponsors pulled out. They don't care what Al Sharpton has to say. They care more about the opinon of the average person than a that of a blowhard. the networks are more concerned about getting ratings and making money. Remember the media is a business as well as a medium. The amount of money that there were going lose if they kept Imus on the air was going to be astronomical. They lost sponsors like Staples Inc., Bigelow Tea Company, Procter & Gamble Co., General Motors, GlaxoSmithKline, American Express and Sprint Nextel. Those are some pretty big companies with even bigger pocket books. Money was the reason he was fired.

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One has to ask what Sharpton's reaction would have been had Imus said that the white players were all inbred white trash hicks.

Also, I don't see how they could be offended if they listen to music with lyrics that say the same thing.

This isn't to say punishment wasn't in order. What he said was really dumb.

I think firing him was a bit much. CBS was just giving in to pressure of the moment. 6 months from now, when Al Sharpton has a new white devil to ruin and Imus is on another radio network, raking in millions for that network (he raked in a couple million for CBS), they're gonna be kicking themselves.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

People often get fired when they say stuff like this on the air. I'm not surprised.

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Al Sharpton has no place demanding that Don Imus gets fired. Mr. Imus's comments did not get anyone killed, Sharpton's has*. Don Imus did a bad thing, and he apologized profusely for it. A suspension was in order, definitely, but an outright firing? Hardly.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Sharpton#Controversies

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GENGHIS KHAN!!!!!

This looks a lot like the case of Ron Atkinson in the UK. Atkinson seems to have recovered from his own little misstep, even though what he said was a lot worse. (He used the actual "n" word, if I remember right.)

If Al Sharpton hadn't gotten his panties in a wad over this, it would have blown over in about three minutes. None of the sponsors would have cared.

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No, even without Sharpton, this would have gotten to where it is now. I knew that as soon as this broke. I've been paying attention to this thing since it broke. The whole Sharpton thing has been a blip on the radar. If anything you can blame CNN, FOX and USA Today. The main headline for the last four days in USA Today has been Don Imus.

Well the "Nappy-Haired Hos" comment wasn't the worst part. He also called the game "The Wannabes(Tennessee) vs. The Jigga-boos(Rutgers)."

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Well people are just that sensitive today.

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That wasn't the smartest thing to say on the air, but it does seem plausible to me that it was indeed just a dumb joke.

- Kef

Well this isn't the first time he has said something like this.

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Well, he had to be immensely popular, otherwise, he wouldn't have been simulcast on MSNBC. If his history makes him such an evil man, what's that say about the outlets letting him spew his crap?

Ok, that came off a lot more jerky than I intended it to. I mean that in a totally non-confrontational way, regardless of how it reads.

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

A lot of that Jew stuff was way more offensive.

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Mmm, point taken. I guess it's like one of those Trent Lott things where a single remark gets him in trouble, but the evidence was there all along...

Heh, I make racist comments all the time! Not about any particular race, about every race, even my own! I've spoken like that about alot of people, both at work, school, home, OL, and WoW. I have yet to be fired, beaten up, smacked, taunted and abused, or banned.

Look at Kramer, he made racist remarks, and what? Nothing. Nothing happend to him, other than a press confrence saying he's sorry, and thats it. Of course, the black community forgave good 'ol Kramer. Why? Because he's Kramer. He has the creds, and he made Seinfeld more funny. Whats not to love about that?

As for this guy, I'm not so sure of, but since he insulted a womens sport team with a racist remark, suddenly its out of bounds. Woah woah, dude from televised radio show, you don't have the creds or anything to say that word, despite the fact we say it to each other more than 15 times a day. You have no right to that word, its ours, so back off!

Bull.
If he can't say it, noone should be able to. If they don't like it, maybe they should stop using it.

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But with Kramer, what could they have done? He's not on TV, so they can't say that he should have been fired.


As for Imus, what he said was incredibly stupid. Suspension, of course. Being fired? It's not my call. But if I were in charge of CBS, and saw all those sponsors drop out, I'd do whatever I could to regain them, even if it meant firing Don.

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I honestly can't blame them for firing him. The sponsors were dropping out, and like it or not, the station is answerable the their sponsors.

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I think firing him was completely appropriate.

With all the lost sponsors, he was costing them more in lost sponsorships than he was worth. Also, his history of being generally racist makes you wonder how sincere his apology was, though it's not like a forced apology is even meaningful.

If you think he was apologizing because he felt bad that his remarks hurt people, you're crazy. He was apologizing because he was trying to save his job.

So I don't mind that he's gone.

On the other hand, I just had to roll my eyes at the video of the women's Rutgers basketball team, saying things like "We were so proud of ourselves, but then he had to say these rude things and ruined the whole thing for us." What he said takes nothing away from them. They chose to be offended rather than to ignore this loser, and the fact that they let him ruin their success is as much their fault as Imus's.

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Bernard said the thing about the Wannabes vs. The Jigga-boos, not Imus.

First of all, This could be the biggest mistake MSNBC has ever made. The radio show broadcast on MSNBC was most likely the highest rated show on the network. They are going to lose a lot of viewers. Second, as Gravey posted before, this isn't the first time Imus has said something like this. Why didn't they get him those other times?

I think it would be a great thing if Imus went to satellite radio. Look at Howard Stern. He jumped ship and most of his listeners went with him. If Imus goes to satellite, I'm sure most of his fans (me included) would go out and buy a subscription and a receiver just to listen to him. But really, the suspension was good enough. They didn't need to fire him.

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While I was watching the Today Show this morning, Don Imus was the first story again (Despite the fact that a governer was severely injured in a car accident ). Someone on the TV finally gave what seemed to be a good opinion of this controversy.

He was a journalist, but I forget the newspaper. Anyway, he basically stated that everyone involved was at fault, from Don Imus, to the Rudger players, and finally Al Sharpton et al. He said that Don Imus was not so important that it ruined the entire basketball season for the Rudger players, and that what they were doing was counter productive to the black community as a whole. I only caught a few minutes of the interview, but I found it very good. Definitely a fresh opinion in this mess.

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GENGHIS KHAN!!!!!

This is the dude that made fun of my area. We are not a "backwards city" thank you very much.

I don't see the big deal. He made a terrible comment and got fired, but maybe I'm just being cold because of his insulting my city.

What's the big deal about that? I wouldn't care if he made a joke about my city no matter what it was (unless it was a very poor-taste joke about the Oklahoma City bombing or something).

- Kef

Just hometown pride. I don't think it was a joke, even. I think he just hated the hotel service. Not a good way to judge a city at all.

True. Sure, what he said was pretty upsetting to many, but firing him was a little excessive. I'm sure CBS/MSNBC could've survived with a few less sponsors for his show. Annonymous people say much worse things everyday, yet we don't hear them in the news. As far as we know, those words don't "exist" in the media.

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I'm sort of two mind about this.

The first part of me says that I think people should lighten up, and get rid of the FCC. Freedom of speech should include derrogatory speech, IMO, because inevitably, people will see how stupid someone is by what stupid things they say (when they actually mean it). Let someone say something bigoted. Let him say it at the wrong time to the wrong person and end up getting his rear end kicked for it.

Learning happens through experience perhaps better than anything else, so trying to educate someone by preventing them from doing something doesn't give them the total innate experience. It's like touching the hot stove when you're a kid--your mother says it's hot; she tells you not to touch it; but you disobey anyway because you have to know for yourself what "hot" feels like. You learn; you abstain; problem solved.

However...the second part of me realizes that if I were to apply that reasoning of "learning through experience with no prevention," then that could potentially open up the gateway for learning not to kill people by the same process--an education with a cost that we, as a collective society, are not and should not be willing to pay. Slippery slope fallacy? Perhaps.

Nevertheless, where would hate speech end? If we censor one set of ideas today, we can censor another set tomorrow. Perhaps censoring people who believe a certain religion, no matter how cultish or underground or scoffed. Then we could censor people who disagree with a specific political view. Another slippery slope? Most would say yes. Where does freedom of speech draw the line? Should people have the right to go throughout life without being offended? Does learning to take offending remarks with a grain of salt help build character? Does my life need to be validated by the outwardly expressed opinion of every person I meet? Should they have to express a tolerance for my belief system and values, however different they may be from their own? Should I be required to behave the same way towards all people I meet?

Do ideas themselves really hurt people, or should we just limit punishable offenses to actions that cause physical harm? How is emotional harm assessed, and how great should it cost to repair, and where would we set a minimum cost before legal recourse could take action against one who emotionally harms another?

Should the open market of ideas come with a body search for questionable ideas and morals? Or is any limitation of any idea, no matter how outlandish and unpopular, a threat to the potential progress of mankind? After all, it was certainly outlandish and unpopular when anything other than a geocentric view of the world was first presented. I'm not saying racial prejudice should be seen as progress. I'm simply saying that we are still far from even covering the tip of the ethical iceberg in viewing the world and universe in its entirety, and our position(s) in it.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!

The important thing to remember here, PMG, is that the FCC didn't get involved*. This was a decision made by MSNBC and CBS, bowing to political pressures. Since those are both privately owned companies (not owned by the government), the owners have the right to disallow ANYTHING they want to disallow. The 1st Amendment only says that the government can't restrict freedom of speech. It says nothing about CEO's bowing to over-sensitive "community leaders". While I think it was a bit excessive and more of a knee-jerk reaction than a well thought out decision, they were within their rights to do it.


*I almost wish they would have, though, just to see what the ACLU's take would be. On one hand, you'd have someone who's had their freedom of speech violated (had the FCC sanctioned him, he didn't violate any "obscenity" standards). On the other, you'd have that freedom violated by someone who had offended minorities and women. Since that person was a white male, I'm pretty sure where the ACLU would side... (another topic, another thread...)

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If you can't fix it with a hammer, you have an electrical problem.

I'd support the ACLU if they really lived up to their original ideals of freedom of speech for EVERYONE. It seems now that they just seemed worried about the minorities, while they have no problems allowing the majority (White Christians) being denied their rights to express themselves in public.

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The meaning of life is 'bucket.'

FOR PONY!!!