The sponsors were leaving because they were afraid it would hurt their image and their bottom line not to leave. And Imus didn’t get hurt by political correctness. he got hurt for saying something genuinely offensive about a group of people who had done nothing to deserve it.
Really? I can’t say I’m surprised, but I hadn’t noticed it. (I don’t watch much TV.) Do you have a cite?
There’s an important point that I think people have been overlooking.
When you hear the word “ho” in most rap songs it’s not directed at a particular, real person. It’s referring to an imaginary woman or women in the context of the song.
A big part of what was so offensive about Imus’s speech is that he was insulting real living, breathing black women, not some fictional floozy. It was made worse by the fact that they were utterly undeserving of any opprobrium whatsoever. They were just college athletes minding their own business until they happened to drift onto his toxic radar.
It’s not the **word ** in and of itself. It’s the **insult ** that he delivered.
You have a good point except that he didn’t mean to insult them… he meant to get some laughs.
Sure, they have a right to be insulted. But if this wasn’t about a politically incorrect action, he could have apologized and moved on.
NBC used to own the radio network that Don Imus’s show was broadcast on- it was originally called WNBC, but is now WFAN. CBS, formerly a subsidiary of Viacom, owns WFAN now and also syndicated Imus’s program. One of NBC’s cable businesses, MSNBC, aired Imus’s radio show on television. Expano Mapcase mentioned Famous Music, but that is owned by Viacom, not CBS, and Viacom is planning on selling Famous. So I don’t think there’s any direct link to either CBS and NBC or the recording industry.
And remember, although Imus did say “nappy-headed ho,” he was responding to a comment from his associate McGuirk, who was the first to call them “hos.” If you’re going to blame Imus, you should blame McGuirk as well.
When I’m out in public with buddies who happen to be drinking and one of them utters a slur, if he is sober enough to understand what he did, I tend to shut him down. If nothing else, it mitigates against someone overhearing his stupidity and trying to pick a fight with the whole table.)
If I am a fabulously overpaid personality and my minion hands me a slur with which to play, I might ignore it (so as not to call attention to it) or I might reprove him (so as to cover my ass in front of the audience), but I clearly have the option to refrain from indulging in the same stupid and offensive banter.
(I have left out any appeal to the decent or correct thing to do, in this case, simply to show that there are practical approaches to the issue. If McGuirk held Imus down with a pitchfork and ordered him to engage in that banter, that, of course, would be a different issue.)