Don Imus' firing said to show internal clout of African-Americans and women

By Richard Prince
Journal-isms
(April 14, 2007) “What's different about [last week’s firing of Don Imus] compared to that of other insult jocks is that people internal to the organizations — women and African-Americans at NBC and CBS — came forward and said, 'I am in this organization, and I do not want to be associated with this kind of man,'" Sheri Parks, a University of Maryland professor who teaches courses on race and gender, said in a Baltimore Sun piece headlined, "Dismissal may signal change; Women, blacks instrumental in Imus' firing."

"While Imus' firing could have a dampening effect on shock-jock insults, she said, the lasting lesson for broadcasters is that empowered women and African-Americans were instrumental in prompting his removal," Nick Madigan and David Zurawik wrote on Saturday, speaking of the firing of radio host Don Imus.

"Parks and other analysts noted that black business leaders played a major role in driving Imus from the airwaves this week: Kenneth Chenault, the chief executive officer of American Express, which pulled its multimillion-dollar account from his MSNBC show; and former NAACP President Bruce S. Gordon, who is a board member for CBS, which fired him Thursday from his radio show.

"Black employees at Sprint Nextel Corp. successfully lobbied CEO Gary D. Forsee to pull the company's advertising, according to The Wall Street Journal.

"'For the first time in our history on a media issue like this, we had African-American men and women who were in key positions of power and able to ask, "What is going on here with this kind of vile commentary?,"' said Jannette L. Dates, co-editor of the landmark book 'Split Image: African-Americans in the Mass Media.'

"'That means that even though there has been this nasty hatefulness in media with comments like the ones from Imus, there has also been progress among this very group of black men and black women that has been treated so vilely,' she said. "Now, we see some of them in positions of power — with the means to end such hateful talk."

Blacks Had Allies
The downfall of Don Imus at MSNBC was the result of complaints from people of both sexes and all races, NBC diversity chief Paula Madison said on Saturday, although she said a meeting between NBC News President Steve Capus and about 20 African American employees crystallized NBC's decision that Imus had to go.
 
Madison's characterization of the Imus objections as coming from people of all races stood in contrast to the general media portrayal of the controversy as one of white males standing behind Imus and African Americans calling for his removal.

"Journalists of every shade contacted us to let us know this was wrong and the only solution was termination," Madison said. "There were some pretty significant African Americans placing phone calls who would never think of raising a placard— the kind of people you see in a board room or on a golf course," Madison told Journal-isms.

"There was NOW, the Billie Jean King sports association, the Links, the National Hispanic Business Association — we heard from a variety of voices," said Madison, who is president and general manager of KNBC-TV in Los Angeles, NBC Universal executive vice president for diversity and a board member of the Maynard Institute for Journalism Education.

The lesson to be drawn from the experience? "People, especially when something really matters to them, they should speak up." She added, "one of the things we have to face as a management structure is that employees are reluctant to speak, regardless of race and gender, but especially reluctant to talk about matters of race.

"You can't just talk about race in a painful situation," or "when tempers are high and it's a crisis," she said.

On Wednesday, after dropping the MSNBC simulcast of the Imus radio show, which originated at CBS-owned WFAN in New York, Capus recapped the events in an interview with David Gregory on MSNBC's "Hardball."

"I've received hundreds, if not thousands of emails, both internal and external, with people with very strong views about what should happen," Capus said. "I've listened to those people with their comments. And many of them are people who have worked at NBC News for decades, people who put their lives on the line covering wars and things like that.

"These comments were deeply hurtful to many, many people."

The meeting with the African American employees took place Tuesday in a conference room at NBC headquarters in New York, Madison said. She was present, along with Marcia Haynes, executive vice president/sourcing, which means procurement, for NBC Universal. Like Madison, she sits on the network's Diversity Council.

"What Steve heard was the anger and the frustration and the heartbreak that the African American employees were expressing, and he knew he was going to have to take the action. . . . They made a very compelling series of presentations," she said. "Everyone spoke who wanted to speak. In many ways it was a dialogue."

Some were members of the African American Forum at NBC Universal, which includes 1,300 to 1,400 African Americans who work for the company. NBC Universal also has a Hispanic Forum, a GE Women's Forum, an APAC Forum for Asian Pacific Americans, and Out at NBC, for gays and lesbians. "We have a culture where managers regularly listen to employees who are gathered" in these groups, Madison said.

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