My point continues to be that no one was censored.

Imus' speech has not been forbidden or banned.

It was not officially suppressed, prohibited, or restricted.

It was simply dropped from a particular agency's entertainment line-up.

News shows are edited: is that censorship?

Salon chooses not to publish certain articles.

Censorship?

"The Black Donnellys" and "Brothers & Sisters" were cancelled.

Should we notify the ACLU?

The people delivering your content are paid to filter it.

This is simply NOT analogous in any way to the U.S. government's refusal to allow copies of "Ulysses" into the country.

I'm associating you with Imus tather than the cause you claim because you're not defending the First Amendment, you're merely defending his job.

His right to free speech is not now nor has it ever been in danger.

The same First Amendment you supposedly hold dear guarantees freedom of the press, so CBS is free to stop "publishing" Imus. I'm sorry you object.

To paraphrase Noam Chomsky, it's pretty rare when history gives you two stark, contradictory examples that demonstrate how the system works. But here we have two: One from the 1950s and another, literally, from earlier this afternoon.

Two years ago the movie "Good Night and Good Luck" received a great deal of attention. It dramatized Edward R. Murrow's televised confrontation with Senator Joseph McCarthy, an incident that some historians believe was a cultural turning point in the defeat of McCarthyism, if not McCarthy himself. What the movie only limns is the enormous risk taken by William Paley, then President of CBS. Immediately after the broadcast there were many in America who were calling for Murrow's job, if not his head. Paley held firm in his support. But of course, that was "good" speech.

Today Leslie Moonves was faced with a similar challenge. Threatened by Al Sharpton with boycotts and protests, and seeing some sponsors duck and cover, Moonves could have stood by the principle that however abhorrent Don Imus's comments may have been, he had the right to make them in the context of an entertainment show on the radio. But he did not. He folded like the cheapest of cheap suits. The irony that he is the current President of CBS and therefore an heir of Paley is almost staggering in its implications. Moreover, Moonves failed the test implicit in the First Amendment, that if we believe in freedom of speech it is precisely that speech we most despise that should be defended with the greatest rigor. But hey, Moonves had investors to please, right Emily?

If Moonves has any shame at all, he'll have to remove every mirror in his home and office.

Imus I

I take strong exception to taking Don Imus off the air. Did he do something wrong? YES! Should he apologize, and ask forgiveness from the Rutger’s University Women’s basketball team and its coach and staff.? ABSOLUTELY! Should he meet them in person? If they wish it, CERTAINLY! These young women were not candidates for the particular (peculiar?) humor of his program. Celebrities are, but this team certainly was not. They were indeed robbed of a precious moment in their lives, and a price needed to be paid. I thought the two weeks suspension, and the dialog as it was developing, were about right. He is responsible for his humor and for the impact of how it can be taken. He cannot propose that only those ‘in’ on his shtick are listening. He must be aware of the incidental or occasional listeners who can be egregiously hurt. And he must be sensitive, as well, to the plight of those whose attention might be brought to what has been said – albeit as comedy – by others, so that ‘the comedy’ is encountered outside of the unique context of the program.

Ironically, the one ‘good’ that has been proposed to come from this - a national conversation on racist and sexist language ‘in the air’ around us – is rendered unlikely with Imus not on the air. Once he becomes involved with a question, he becomes a BULLDOG on it, frequently driving nearly anyone going along for the ride crazy. It’s about 95% probable that, without Imus to drive the matter, these questions will disappear in short order.

Context Counts

Context – 1

If you make a printed text from something spoken and lay it out there for people to view, they can imagine any sort of context for it. Most would recognize, however, that when something is spoken, whoever is speaking will provide context by the manner of their speaking, and you would want to know just what the tone and tenor of that speaking was. Most would concede that with out knowing the manner of what was said, it would be difficult to make a conjecture, let alone a well considered judgment, about the intent of the speaker.

I encountered Imus’s offending moment as it occurred: a lazy, lame, tossed off - and failed - attempt at humor. No one hearing it, however, could confuse it with an assertion that what was said was being proposed as something believed by those who spoke, something they want to be taken seriously. Nor do I believe the tone and tenor of the moment would readily be taken, as it might - in the abstract - be taken: a use of humor as a ‘cover’, serving some ‘hidden’ racist/sexist bias.

Context – 2

The basic ‘shtick’ with Imus is the unedited id loose in the real world. [Say anything!] Although he does edit himself, he is hardly perfect in that regard, and things over the line will out.

It’s humor! Sophomoric, crude and often very funny. Anyone who takes Imus and company seriously in such business is seriously courting loosing their grip. Exploiting stereotypes is part of the game. But Imus and his gang play it entirely in the spirit of ‘equal opportunity’.

It is one thing to cycle through a select group of stereotypes, however humorously, in pursuit of an agenda (racial, political, personal, whatever); it is quite another to present a whirling carnival burlesque of stereotypes, with no discernable agenda at all. The sheer idiocy of the stereotypes themselves is thrown into high relief. Jokes are what they are good for – the only thing they are good for. THAT is the humor heard day in and day out on ‘Imus in the Morning’. It has been on the air, accepted and appreciated by a wide audience for over thirty years. If it is all so egregiously offensive, how could that have happened? I suggest it is because most were seeing it as I have proposed it: sophomoric, rude, crude, stereotype exploiting, and - often enough – very funny. Face it, a well-neigh universal ‘guilty pleasure’ of the human race! One imagines the people of Cave A yukked it up over the ‘shortcomings’ of the people in Cave B, and vice versa.

Context – 3.

Beyond the particular humor of the Imus program, for which he is surely responsible, is there any consistent body of evidence of bigotry and racism in his life. Bob Herbert’s April 12th NY Times column indicated there is. Herbert’s citation of Imus’s use of the ‘n’ word seems well grounded, but it was in conversation, and ‘tone and tenor test’ above cannot be met. Are there other instances? Herbert goes on to tell of group discussions within MSNBC involving Imus’s co-workers. But, in a column focused specifically on Imus, the account of those discussions curiously alleges only generic objections about the treatment, particularly, of women in the media. Problems with Imus, beyond objections to what arises from specific manifestations of Imus’s ‘humor’, are not brought forward. My own strong suspicion, from literally decades of listening, is that there will be no substantial body of evidence discovered, beyond on air shtick, showing Imus to be a bigot or racist.

Context – 4.

What else is on the show? Over the last decade and more, a second ‘staple’ of the broadcast has become interviews conducted with political and literary figures. Frequently they have offered more insight into those individuals and their points of view than anything else one come across – or at least anything taking up such brief spans of time. That material has become possibly the principle reason I have listened. (I get wonkier as I get older.)

Context – 5.

Imus life as a whole. How has be lived, what has he done with his life in total? He has had a very varied and rich life, but one awash in self-destructive behaviors, including alcohol and drug addition, from which he has been ‘in recovery’ for something in the neighborhood of twenty years. He has made no bones about this on the program, and MUCH humor has been poked at him by others, and by Imus at himself, on this score. Beginning close to two decades ago, with the Tomorrow’s Children Fund (providing help for children with cancer) a couple of days a year were successfully devoted to raising consciousness and money for that charity. Then, after Carly Hollander, the young daughter of Imus’s then supervisor, Joel Hollander, died of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Imus added fund and consiousness raising for that cause. In the mid to late 1990’s Imus and his wife, Dierdre, got it into their heads to develop a ranch for kids with cancer. A place where kids, whose lives are dominated by response to their illness, are given an opportunity to serve as hands on a working cattle ranch, raising levels of self responsibility, self possession, and self confidence - an opportunity not systematically found in much of the rest of their lives. It was an immense effort to fund, build and get up and running, but it was accomplished. All evidence I have come across suggest it has been an enormous success. The ranch now takes up, one gathers, three to four months of their lives a year, with commitment not only in money, but in time, energy, effort and, above all, caring.

With all the above ‘contexts’ in mind, taking Imus off the air is no balanced judgment at all, rather a rush to judgment. Apology, dialog and suspension, yes; further, no.