Friday, April 13, 2007

Don Imus out of a job.

Call me crazy but there is something about the fireing of Don Imus that I don't trust. Perhaps ABC Radio has decided to clean up it's act, but I doubt it. Since when have they had any sort of conscience. The answer, never!

Imus was a racist and antisemite. For that there is no excuese, except perhaps being born in America, where many in his audience probably agree with him. He should have been gone a long time ago. Perhaps it is the timeing I don't trust. I am willing to bet there is more to the story.

I am also squeamish about the seeming arbitrariness of it all. There are plenty of radio hosts that foist misogynistic, racist, antisemitic crap on the listening audience. Rush Limbaugh comes to mind immediately with his "feminazies" and his "halfrican" comments. Not to mention his crude parody of Michael Fox last year.

In the Minneapolis market we have KQRS. The Morning Show's Tom Barnard is routinely racist in the material he chooses to air. If you ever wanted to study negative stereotypes. All all you have to do is listen to his drive time schtick.

Much of drive time and right wing radio reduces the level of public discourse to picking on minorities, women, the poor, and Democrats. When did a drive time DJ call a white executive to sucker with some prank? Where is CBS Radio's corporate decisiveness and morality on all that?

Don Imus dished it out to all sides of the political spectrum, not just the Democrats. Perhaps that is why he was expendable?

3 comments:

Leo said...

I can only hope that the media will begin to clean up its act but at the end of the day it's is all about he bottom line. Imus broke the rules. He knew where to stop but he holds everyone in contempt and thought that he could lower the bar even further. Imus would still be behind the microphone if he would have attacked a crowd over 21 years old and out of college. Youth is still considered out of bounds for the usual scatological humorists. Imus has paid a price for his arrogance. I'm sure that he'll be back probably on XM or somewhere.

Andrew, Bridget, Walker, and Josie said...

I am sorry to say that I believe what you say is true. I just hope it gives some people pause. I hope your weekend went well.

A

Anonymous said...

Why don't you believe in free speech? Imus is an idiot but is also free to say whatever the hell he wants. Sounds like selective outrage to me. Why aren't you bitching about Al Sharpton's race baiting history or Jesse "Hymietown" Jackson. Should they be fired from their jobs? What exactly are their jobs besides outrage patrol and self appointed community leaders? Just a few questions for you to ponder.

As for you comments about Tom Barnard all I have to say is for over 20 years he has had one of the highest rated shows in the country and currently 1 out of 5 people listening to the radio are listening to him.