The backlash backlash
It used to be that months, sometimes years, were required to generate a backlash to a backlash. But accelerating communications technology has changed all that. Now, with an instantaneous and ongoing news cycle, coupled with satellite transmission, the internet, cell phones, texting, blogs, websites, RSS, and probably secret messages in your alphabet soup, the backlash backlash is upon us before the first backlash has even ended.
Take the Imus situation. Only moments ago he was a racist villain. Then Bill Maher and others painted him as more of a free speaker chased out of town in a witch hunt. Now Imus’ $120 million lawsuit against CBS is proceeding apace from the position that, well, they wanted a shock jock and that’s what they got. (Which is in line with what I said before.)
I think Imus is going to win (either at trial or in a settlement). For CBS, it was never about the outrage and always about the money. (Of course.) They hired Imus to generate ratings and money, which he did. When he went “too far” (a location hard to define, given the nature of the job description) and sponsors and advertisers backed away, they canned him. Now he’s suing them — for money. It’s going to cost them all around, in every way.
And when he wins, Imus will seem redeemed, completing the backlash backlash. And if it isn’t okay to mock on the supposedly public airwaves attractive intelligent young college women as “nappy-headed hos” because they happen to be black, then he’ll take this brand of what passes for humor to satellite radio and make a lot of money for someone else.
May 20th, 2007 at 6:13 am
Lee,
Just one correction, Imus made his comments about the Rutgers University Women’s basketball team.
Paul
May 20th, 2007 at 11:34 am
Oh. Well, then. He’s in the clear.
(And I’ll update the original posting so I seem less, um, stupidly mistaken while writing late-night posts.)
Thanks.
May 20th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
People forget that broadcasters will put almost anything on radio or television as long as it generates a profit. If dead air generated advertising revenue that’s what the broadcasters would offer. Imus, Stern, and their ilk are safe as long as they generate that revenue. The main reason Imus was let go was because his ad generating potential was dimininshed after his comments.
Where his comments wrong? To most people they were, but if the advertisers had not threatened to bail out on his show he would still be there spouting his comments and generating profit.
Paul
PS I though his comments were not appropiate.
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:12 am
Well I thought that it was hilarious, Paul. I laughed and laughed. I nearly inhaled my cornflakes. Thinking at that moment…holy shit, that was funny, Imus is nearing the edge of the cliff! And now on MSNBC- – THIS morning is the nearly acute-coronary-esque Jim Cramer bringing back Charles McCord for a test drive, who of course has always known how to behave…sic transit gloria munde.