After Imus: What You Can Do
The controversy over Don Imus’ racist remarks goes far beyond one bigoted commentator. But getting rid of Imus won’t fix the media problem.
While the recent remarks by Don Imus are deeply objectionable, StopBigMedia.com does not have a formal position on whether he should have been fired or retained. Our mission is to deal with government policies that shape the media system.
About the Imus issue, media scholar and Free Press co-founder Robert McChesney wrote:
Imus still is a free person. He can start a blog or, in all likelihood, find another media company willing to employ him. He has as many free speech rights as you or me. If someone suggests the government should remove his free speech rights, I will be the first to defend him.
But that does not mean Imus has a First Amendment right to a national radio or TV program, any more than you and I have a right to demand we get a national program on a TV network or radio network. When it comes to freedom of the press, the right and responsibility for what is produced, published and broadcast rests with the institution. MSNBC and CBS hold that First Amendment privilege, for the most part. The government cannot and should not force MSNBC or CBS to hire or fire a specific person. And if you feel strongly that MSNBC and CBS should retain Imus, or hire someone else to provide his style of humor, you should tell them.
It’s clear to McChesney and others that this is not a fight over the First Amendment. We are rather concerned with the government policies that establish the media system. We believe that this incident points to a systemic problem in our media: Most of our TV and radio stations are owned by giant corporate conglomerates. They don’t represent the views of most Americans — and they make huge profits off the public airwaves.
What Imus said is just the tip of the iceberg. Scores of other TV and radio hosts regularly make racist and sexist comments. The best way to stop this race to the bottom is to change who’s sitting at the top — and making the decisions about who’s behind the mic.
Right now, less than 10% of radio and television stations are owned by people of color or women. And, according to one industry study, only 2.5% of radio stations have a person of color in the role of general manager, and only 4.4% have a racial or ethnic minority in the role of news director. The percentage of women in these jobs isn’t much higher. No wonder shock jocks like Imus have been able to keep their jobs for so long.
But instead of addressing this national disgrace, the Federal Communications Commission is actually trying to let the largest companies buy up even more stations!
According to McChesney:
Women of color, like those Rutgers basketball players, own almost nothing. The FCC has refused to follow its congressional mandate to advance minority media ownership; indeed, we have been going in the wrong direction for a good decade. This is not the only reason we end up with someone like Imus broadcast coast to coast, but it is a factor. It is one we can and must change.
One of the best ways to get new voices on television and radio is by addressing the lack of diversity in media ownership. Promoting diverse media ownership and protecting freedom of speech are not mutually exclusive or contradictory. In fact, we can and must aggressively fight for both.
If you agree, work with the StopBigMedia.com Coalition to demand media ownership that better reflects the diversity that makes our nation great.
>> Tell the FCC: We Need More Diversity in the Media
>> Tell Your Friends to Join in This Action
If the media is majority white-male-owned, and reflects the opinions of “white guys”, how come my favorite local talk show hosts keep getting kicked off the air because they said something that offended some “minority” group, even if the remark was true.
April 14th, 2007 at 7:26 amGeneralizations without specific cases and facts such as the comment above tell us why the corporate media remain in power. Majority communities who have no respect, sensitivity or understanding of minority communities are the result of a media system that doesn’t reflect the diversity of our country.
For a detailed look at the corporate powers behind Imus and why they are responsible for ruining the public’s airwaves, please check here.
April 14th, 2007 at 2:40 pm[…] After Imus: What You Can Do […]
April 14th, 2007 at 5:50 pmI had subscribed to the freepress.net stopbigmedia e-mails out of an apparently mistaken belief that the end goal was free speech. I occasionally read the e-mails, and when I saw “After Imus…”, it caught my attention. I was surprised to see an advocacy of race-based quotas instead of diversity of opinions. I was hoping that a media breakup would result in my having the choice to hear my views without some “sensitivity police” ready to swoop in and cower station management into submission. Now I see that I am the enemy.
April 14th, 2007 at 9:44 pmAnd I’m not writing this as an Imus fan, having only occasionally listened to his show. The same thing has happened to many local hosts I’ve listened to in the past, and the ones that remain are under constant threat of annihilation by various “minority” pressure groups. I wish, as a working-class white guy, we had the “power” they say we do!
For the record and comments that might follow, I live in fascist California where multi-culturalism is the state religion, everybody’s “good idea” gets the force of law, and where you can have your tongue cut out (metaphorically, duh) if overheard stating an “inappropriate” opinion at the water cooler. I do a job Americans aren’t supposed to do, and have been kicked out of mandatory Diversity Training classes for not mindlessly going along with the corporate agenda. I guess that makes me incorrigible.
I also was mistaken in thinking that this was an orgnaization dedicated to free speech, and frankly you imposters have been called out, both at http://www.fleabomb.com, and on http://www.pinemagazine.com. I also actually took the trouble to relay my concerns in an actual letter in addition to contacting your site through your feedback form, and have yet to hear back from either. Either way, it’s good to see this sham orgnaization for what it is: a group of ultra-libs who will only defend your right to say something so long as they agree with what you say. Really, out of shame if nothing else, you should seriously consider changing the name of your organization. Truly disgusting.
April 17th, 2007 at 11:24 amPlease take a moment to re-read the above post. Free Press is absolute in its support of the First Amendment. We never pushed for Imus to be censored. Rather we critique U.S. broadcast system that has systematically shut out people of color. The FCC has a statutory responsibility to protect diversity, localism and competition when it grants access to publicly owned airwaves. Free Press has shown through extensive research that the agency has abandoned this mandate.
The result is a media marketplace where a handful of powerful media conglomerates dominate news and information — especially in markets where one company owns the main newspaper and television stations. In radio you have a situation where one company owns as many as eight local stations — even in a relatively small community.
Such conglomerated ownership translates to cookie-cutter news and information that shuns issues of importance to minority communities. A broadcast media system that is controlled by the few does a disservice to the many. The solution is not to create less but more perspectives in the media.
In 1969, the Supreme Court observed that: “it is the purpose of the First Amendment to preserve an uninhibited marketplace of ideas in which truth will ultimately prevail, rather than to countenance monopolization of that market.”
The Imus incident is just one example of how our broadcast system has failed to live up to this “purpose.” Promoting diverse media ownership and protecting freedom of speech are not mutually exclusive or contradictory. In fact, we can and must aggressively fight for both.
April 18th, 2007 at 6:52 amAs I said in my letter, both paper and electronic, I support what you guys do. I find your choice to use one of the most blatant failings of our society to support free speech as a rallying cry for your cause and incredibly poor choice, and really I fail to see the connection between the Imus incident and stopping big media. I think you are providing a weak argument to how they connect and you know it. The Imus incident is nothing more than a reminder to how intolerant our society is, and how willing certain people are in the media to use an unrelated incident to advance their own personal agendas. Your organization is no different, and the fact that you are nominally dedicated to free speech makes it all the more sickening. From your post its obvious you don’t promote free speech but rather speech that you agree with. I actually support free speech. I want people like you to be able to publish your BS arguments and be able to rail against people like Imus. I also support Imus’s freedom to say a bunch of stuff you and I don’t like. If there was any way for your group to cover this, it should have been an outcry against his firing and reflections on what it really means for free speech in this country. Instead, your organization gives its tacit consent to firing someone because of a careless remark. Hell, even a racist remark, which it wasn’t. Look, tkarr, you either support free speech or you don’t. There’s no middle ground, like I support free speech so long as it doesn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. You walk around thinking you’re a liberal and a free thinker, but the truth is you’re as big a fascist as George Bush or Dick Cheney. Just like them you don’t want anyone to be able to express views different from yours, because you are absolutely convinced that your way is the only right way.
The cause you have chosen has been seriously undermined by your organization’s obvious lack of commitment to free speech. You either need to rename your organization or take a long, hard look at yourselves.
I still have yet to receive any response to my letters.
April 18th, 2007 at 10:39 amYou’re free to attack our organization however you like. But you ought to devote more of your time to understanding our important perspective on this (which you clearly have not) and less time labeling people as fascists or anti-free speech without a shred of evidence to support your view. I’m not saying you can’t have a point of view. Just don’t expect anyone to take you seriously if you can’t substantiate it with anything more than breathless ranting.
April 18th, 2007 at 12:26 pmTkarr how can you possibly say you guys support free speech? More like it seems you guys either carry “white guilt” or have a hatred against “the white man”.
Are you going to have another release saying how BET should have a certain % of white people working for them? Or any other media stations?
How do you guys know the system systematically pushed out people of color?
And honestly, you guys say you are for Freedom of speech???Freedom of Speech was meant to protect speech that most people will not like. Or else there would be no reason for it.
I can’t wait to see how many more updates you will have against black people that make fun of white people. How about Steve Harvey the other week making fun of “rednecks”? Wheres your outrage for that???
Like everyone else in the “Big Media” you guys are hypocrites as well. And I am really dissapointed..
April 18th, 2007 at 6:28 pmIn 1969, the Supreme Court observed that: “it is the purpose of the First Amendment to preserve an [b]uninhibited marketplace of ideas[/b] in which truth will ultimately prevail, rather than to countenance monopolization of that market.”
First of all, I see that you have not refuted any of my points which were made clearly. You have no arguments to defend your organization’s support of the desturction of the “uninhibited marketplace of ideas” that the Supreme Court decision calls for. I’d like to hear calm, rational explanation of how Imus’s firing contributes to this uninhibited marketplace.
In my opinion (which you attack as breathless ranting despite the face that the same point has been made by serveral posters other than me) the firing of anyone over a casual comment goes a long way to destroy an “uninhibited marketplace of ideas” by making it quite clear that certain ideas, thoughts, comments, or opinions, will get you canned for expressing yourself.
I don’t want to put words in your mouth, so let me ask you a direct question and you can answer that and tell me everything I need to know: suppose there’s a radio host who has a conservative show and it’s syndicated and airs in 20 or so cities in the South (or any region). People listen to the show and really like it because they hear their own views, which are often sexist and racist, echoed in the words of the hosts. Suppose said host one day comes out and says “You know, I’m not saying anyone should follow my lead or share my opinion, but I really don’t like black people. From now on I’m not going to talk about their issues or talk to them in the street.”
In other words, the host expresses outright racism that is not hate speech because he is expressing a personal opinion rather than advocating others take some form of action (I’m familiar with the laws).
Do you think that person should lose their job? Do beleive that people in America have the right to express racist thoughts? Do people in America have the right to hear their own racist views echoed in radio and television? Let’s pretend for one second that you, TKarr, have absolute power over access to all media, radio, tv, movies, and internet. Would you allow people with views that you deem racist, sexist, or otherwise offensive, free access to the airwaves? Or would you seek to exclude them, hoping to help stamp out all racism, sexism, and other offensive isms through your control of the media. Hell, let’s even say you knew for a fact it would do that. Would you?
April 26th, 2007 at 3:54 pmAlso, the email you sent your members is the only evidence I need, unless you’re going to deny the existence of that. Also wanted to point out that almost two weeks from when I sent my letter, I still have received no reply, electronic or otherwise.
April 26th, 2007 at 4:01 pm