BroGonzo
04-12-2007, 10:40 PM
I apologize in advance for the Howard reference. Keep in mind my military audience.
Tomorrow, radio host Don Imus will sign off from his daily radio show, “Imus in the Morning,” for a two-week suspension imposed by his parent company CBS over inflamatory remarks he made about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.
After watching the Rutgers women lose to Tennessee in the national championship game, Imus remarked, “That’s some nappy-headed hos there.”
Imus’ ill-planned comments ignited a nation-wide firestorm over the weekend, and resulted in several prominent black leaders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, calling for his immediate resignation or termination from CBS radio and from MSNBC, which airs the simulcast of the “Imus in the Morning” show.
I want to make one thing perfectly clear before I say anything else: I am not going to defend Imus’ statements, which were irresponsible, distasteful, and brutish. I’m also not going to launch into an explanation of how comedy shouldn’t be taken as seriously as, say, a newscast.
But I don’t think that Imus should be fired for having said what he did.
It’s not that I think he’s a wonderful human being, and I certainly don’t think he should be entitled to more protection than any other citizen. Actually, I really can’t stand his show, which seems to me to be based primarily around Imus’ grouchy antagonization of his staff, a few impersonations, and some heavy-hitting Washington Beltway journalists as guests.
“Freedom of speech” is a principle everyone learns about in grade school — we’re told it’s one of the things that makes America so great, that we’re all about the “marketplace of ideas” and “dialogue.”
What we don’t learn in grade school, however, is about the ugly side of free speech that’s inextricably bound up in that right. Not all free speech is going to be popular, tasteful, agreeable, truthful, or designed to promote the betterment of society. Some of it, in fact, is going to wind up being crude, obtuse, hateful, and wrong.
There are limitations on free speech, of course — you can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater, and you can’t slander another person to the point that it interferes with his or her ability to make a living. But these provisos are designed to protect everyone from actual harm — not to prevent society (or any one part of it) from being simply offended.
The thing is, for every Francis Scott Key or John F. Kennedy we have, there are a host of Larry Flynts and Howard Sterns. Does the fact that the latter enjoy the same freedom as the former mean we should curtail the free speech of all Americans?
Of course not.
Limiting speech means stripping United States citizenship of one of its foundational principles, and to the extent we do that, we lose our identity as Americans.
That’s not to say that Imus — and others who decide to use their free speech to degrade other people — won’t be held accountable for what he says. If his comments were sufficiently offensive to enough people, they’ll stop supporting his show by not purchasing the products advertised on it. Should CBS stop making money by airing Imus’ show, it won’t hesistate to give the old crank the boot.
Just don’t do it simply because he said something offensive. Imus may have gotten off easy with a two-week suspension, but when we curtail free speech, we all suffer.
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/articles/2007/04/12/turret/sports/sports02.txt
Tomorrow, radio host Don Imus will sign off from his daily radio show, “Imus in the Morning,” for a two-week suspension imposed by his parent company CBS over inflamatory remarks he made about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.
After watching the Rutgers women lose to Tennessee in the national championship game, Imus remarked, “That’s some nappy-headed hos there.”
Imus’ ill-planned comments ignited a nation-wide firestorm over the weekend, and resulted in several prominent black leaders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, calling for his immediate resignation or termination from CBS radio and from MSNBC, which airs the simulcast of the “Imus in the Morning” show.
I want to make one thing perfectly clear before I say anything else: I am not going to defend Imus’ statements, which were irresponsible, distasteful, and brutish. I’m also not going to launch into an explanation of how comedy shouldn’t be taken as seriously as, say, a newscast.
But I don’t think that Imus should be fired for having said what he did.
It’s not that I think he’s a wonderful human being, and I certainly don’t think he should be entitled to more protection than any other citizen. Actually, I really can’t stand his show, which seems to me to be based primarily around Imus’ grouchy antagonization of his staff, a few impersonations, and some heavy-hitting Washington Beltway journalists as guests.
“Freedom of speech” is a principle everyone learns about in grade school — we’re told it’s one of the things that makes America so great, that we’re all about the “marketplace of ideas” and “dialogue.”
What we don’t learn in grade school, however, is about the ugly side of free speech that’s inextricably bound up in that right. Not all free speech is going to be popular, tasteful, agreeable, truthful, or designed to promote the betterment of society. Some of it, in fact, is going to wind up being crude, obtuse, hateful, and wrong.
There are limitations on free speech, of course — you can’t yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater, and you can’t slander another person to the point that it interferes with his or her ability to make a living. But these provisos are designed to protect everyone from actual harm — not to prevent society (or any one part of it) from being simply offended.
The thing is, for every Francis Scott Key or John F. Kennedy we have, there are a host of Larry Flynts and Howard Sterns. Does the fact that the latter enjoy the same freedom as the former mean we should curtail the free speech of all Americans?
Of course not.
Limiting speech means stripping United States citizenship of one of its foundational principles, and to the extent we do that, we lose our identity as Americans.
That’s not to say that Imus — and others who decide to use their free speech to degrade other people — won’t be held accountable for what he says. If his comments were sufficiently offensive to enough people, they’ll stop supporting his show by not purchasing the products advertised on it. Should CBS stop making money by airing Imus’ show, it won’t hesistate to give the old crank the boot.
Just don’t do it simply because he said something offensive. Imus may have gotten off easy with a two-week suspension, but when we curtail free speech, we all suffer.
http://www.thenewsenterprise.com/articles/2007/04/12/turret/sports/sports02.txt