OK, so now I take off my outraged black woman hat, and put on my lawyer hat. Let me make a few disclaimers, however, and say first that the last time I actively practiced law, I think disco was in fashion. Second, my "specialty," if you could call it that, was consumer law and not constitutional law. Third, while you can take the girl out of the law, you can't really take the law out of the girl...which means that I am constantly looking at a given issue through varying lenses (this always makes the simplest decision so difficult in my regular life). I'm sure you know where this is going...I just have to ask the question whether Don Imus's right to free speech has been violated?
Oliver Wendell Holmes said free speech could be curtailed if there was a clear and present danger that what was being said might bring about the ills that Congress had a right to prevent. Holmes wrote in this decision that the first amendment would not cover a man “falsely shouting fire in a theater” and causing panic. Did the Imus “joke” present a clear and present danger? Probably not. The Supreme Court later ruled that speech should only be banned if it is meant to incite immediate lawless action. Such a foolish remark could certainly be expected to incite immediate action, but probably not lawless. So I still don’t think it meets the test. If that's the case, why didn't Imus get himself a fancy lawyer and sue CBS and MSNBC? Well, Imus had a job. And your boss can pretty much fire you for whatever reason s/he wants. The stampeding away of big advertisers in the commercial media is a pretty good reason to get a pink slip. Folks have been fired for less. So the nappy headed ho comment incited imminent economic action. You know...like in the cartoons when the pack of money sprouts wings and flies out the window...
Remember, he was only going to be suspended for two weeks. Although both heads of MSNBC and CBS said their decisions to fire Imus came after receiving thousands of emails and having conversations with employees at both media organizations, you know perfectly well that the two week suspension would have stood if advertisers hadn’t backed away so fast you could hear them beeping. I believe it helps that the head of American Express, an Imus advertiser, is a black man. I believe it helps that Bruce Gordon, the former head of the NAACP and the only black person on the CBS board, appeared on national television and said Imus had to go. But it was the loss of millions of ad dollars ($20 million, according to THE WASHINGTON POST) that sealed his fate. Or, in the vernacular of the street, the cap in his ass had a dollar sign on it.
But here’s the thing: Americans tend to be a forgiving lot (can you say "the rehabilitation of Richard Nixon"?), and unless he decides to retire, Imus will be back on the airways someplace. In fact, Imus is still on some goofy little 14-thousand watt station outside of Los Angeles in a Best of Imus format (they started today with the show on which the "nhh" comment was made..,the programming director thought it was important for listeners to hear how Imus came to make this utterance...context, the director said...). My guess is, and y’all can put notes in your desks to remind you that I said this, by year’s end, he will be on Sirius or X-M satellite radio with his shock jock buddy Howard Stern, spewing his venom and being heard by followers who are willing to pay for it. And so be it. I’m not always a big fan of the end justifying the means, but it gives me hope to know that we finally figured out how to make the system work: manipulation of the almighty dollar.
My final word on this isn’t my word at all; it’s a commentary by NPR’s Michel Martin, made early in the week, before Imus appeared on Al Sharpton’s radio show, before the suspension and the ultimate firing. And if you saw 60 MINUTES on Sunday, the 10-year-old profile of Imus they rebroadcast featured the Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner she refers to in her commentary.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/roughcuts/2007/04/can_i_just_tell_you_1.html
What she said…
1 comment:
As I told you in private e-mail, we are all Ferengi now ... nothing matters but business, the bottom line.
In a way, we're at the "bread and circuses" phase that came at the end of the Roman Empire: keep people fed garbage and entertained, and they'll be amused. Can you say "professional sports" without wondering why we pay relatively untalented people vast sums of money to play a game?
And Imus is part of that circle - babbling his drivel to a ring of admirers who'd rather be entertained and wallow in their self-important bigotry - while not really producing anything remotely beneficial to the long-term benefit of society as a whole.
But, that's just my take on it ... and I'm a curmudgeon.
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