October 22, 2007
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| Tyler Perry did most of the talking when he and Janet Jackson appeared on "Good Day Sacramento." He deflected questions about Jackson's breast-baring at the 2004 Super Bowl, saying they had agreed to talk only about the film. |
CBS Affiliate Sorry for Questions to Janet Jackson
Filmmaker Tyler Perry has demonstrated that the news media have underestimated how popular his films are among African Americans, and now he has taught a Sacramento television station not to underestimate the wrath of his fans.Entertainment reporter Mark S. Allen of KOVR-TV's "Good Day Sacramento" apologized to viewers on Friday after receiving at least 13,000 complaints from fans of Perry and Janet Jackson, a star in Perry's latest film, "Why Did I Get Married?" over an Oct. 11 interview that the "Good Day Sacramento" hosts did with the two entertainers.
"I was a jerk, an absolute jerk," Allen said.
As the station, a CBS affiliate, reported, "Hosts Marianne McClary, Nick Toma and entertainment reporter Mark S. Allen stayed on topic, at least for the first half of the interview. Later on, eager for the chance to finally ask the questions that had burned in his mind for four years, Allen fired away.
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| Mark S. Allen displays stack of comments from Tyler Perry fans. |
"Immediately, Jackson appeared to have problems with her earpiece while Perry quickly jumped in, trying to change the subject. But Allen wouldn't let up.
"'How often do you consider that you single-handedly rocked the broadcast world?' asked Allen.
"Jackson remained mum, sitting quietly, while Perry ran interference during the questioning. Allen repeatedly tried to get an answer from her on the notorious wardrobe malfunction, but none was forthcoming."
After the show, Perry fans sprung into action.
"I had to maintain my composure because we were live on the air. I didn't let her speak," Perry told his supporters in an Oct. 14 note posted on his Web site. "I kept jumping in because it was just so unfair to her. I have not seen Justin Timberlake attacked like that. I wasn't going to let them do that to her. Believe me when I tell you — Janet worked so hard on this film. She deserved more respect from this man than that! We both did."
Then, "In his latest letter to fans, Perry states: 'After you all saw that interview that Janet and I did; you started an email campaign that ended in this man going on air and giving an apology. He got so many emails that it crashed the computer system at the TV station. The other employees couldn't get emails from what I understand,'" the EURWeb site reported on Monday.
A station spokeswoman told Journal-isms that at least 13,000 people contacted the station and it was responding to each one. It was having difficulty trying to determine how many individuals had commented, since some sent e-mails to more than one person at the station. Allen told viewers he had received 19,000 e-mails.
"Why Did I Get Married" stunned Hollywood with a first-place showing in box office receipts its opening weekend, though Perry had done so before. In its second weekend, it came in second place, news agencies reported on Monday.
On Saturday, Angela Tuck, public editor at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, took the paper to task for not acknowledging the opening of Perry's film, even though Perry didn't allow critics to pre-screen it.
"Nine times out of 10, they've never been kind to me on any of my films," Perry told the newspaper, speaking of critics in a February article.
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View the
interview
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View the apology
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Lorenza Muñoz, Los Angeles Times:
Tyler Perry aims to go over well abroad
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Amelia Robinson, Dayton (Ohio) Daily News:
Interviewer needs to look past Miss Jackson's breast
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Eugene Robinson, Washington Post:
Tyler Perry's Money Machine
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Houston Paper Plans Layoffs; Trimming Staff by 5%
"A staff reduction in the five percent range, through layoffs and the elimination of open positions, is scheduled for Monday and Tuesday, October 29 and 30, 2007," Jack Sweeney, publisher of the Houston Chronicle, wrote to employees on Monday."In this complex and competitive media environment, with consumer choices multiplying daily, our new strategic plan calls for more resources to be dedicated to new technology and product development. We need to operate differently, and at less cost, as we continue to build our lineup of products to capture more audience and ad revenue market share," his note said.
"That, coupled with a downturn in our financial performance over the past five years, plus an '08 budget projection with another drop in revenue, sets the stage for a reorganization, and, unfortunately, a position-elimination program."
Sweeney told Journal-isms that diversity would be one of the factors taken into account when the layoffs were made and that he wanted to give employees time to volunteer for buyouts or early-separation packages.
He said he had no target or ceiling for newsroom layoffs, saying, "I would think all departments would be involved." Sweeney said he was looking at losing 70 of the 1,400 full-time employees, and that "most will be job eliminations."
The publisher added that there would be consolidations of functions. "We're trying to do this the best way we can and keep people motivated," he said.
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Unity: Journalists of Color:
Diversity Should Be Prime Factor in Reshaping American Newsrooms
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Williams' Thomas Interview Goes to Time, Not NPR
A Juan Williams interview with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas appeared this month not on National Public Radio, where Williams is a senior correspondent, but in Time magazine."Juan did get approached by Justice Thomas but he passed on the offer" for NPR "because he knew there was a standing request" from NPR's "All Things Considered," NPR spokeswoman Andi Sporkin told Journal-isms on Monday.
Williams has a relationship with Thomas that predates Thomas' tenure on the court. In his new memoir, "My Grandfather's Son," Thomas said Williams provided "my closest relationship with a journalist. . . . I'd come to believe that he was a decent man looking for the truth."
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| Juan Williams took last month's interview with President Bush to Fox News when NPR declined. |
Ellen Weiss, vice president of NPR News, later wrote a note to staffers explaining that "Juan and I have spoken at length about this situation and he offered me the following to share: '. . . I respect NPR's management. They have the right to refuse any interview opportunity. . . .'"
Sporkin told Journal-isms, "Juan has a deal with Time Magazine to contribute essays, interviews and other pieces, and the print interview with Justice Thomas was part of that arrangement. Separately, the formal NPR request to the publisher for a Justice Thomas broadcast interview was with 'All Things Considered' and host Michele Norris; that's where and how we frequently air author interviews. (NPR refers to this submission of requests as the 'dibs' process: a show puts dibs on a specific interview or guest). Juan did get approached by Justice Thomas but he passed on the offer because he knew there was a standing request from ATC."
Thomas has not granted the "All Things Considered" interview request.
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Candidates Split on Appearing on New Imus Show
"Only two major presidential hopefuls said yesterday they would go on the air with radio cowboy Don Imus if he returns to the airwaves in December," Michael McAuliff and Adam Lisberg reported Monday in the New York Daily News."Despite Imus' history of on-air racial blunders, Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said they would return to Imus' show, saying the talker deserves a second chance.
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| Don Imus |
"Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) 'does not intend to go on the show and hopes that Imus has learned from the hurt and pain he caused,' spokeswoman Jen Psaki said. Howard Wolfson, a spokesman for Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), said 'she hasn't done it before. I can't imagine her ever doing it in the future.'
"The campaign of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani didn't comment, but Giuliani said before Imus was fired that he would not boycott the shock jock."
In an essay that longstanding Imus monitor Philip Nobile submitted to Journal-isms, Nobile recalled an anti-bigotry pledge administered to Imus in 2000 by Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, which Imus later broke. "Imus needs to renew his anti-bigotry pledge, if he has any hope for recovery," Nobile said. His essay appears at the end of today's column.
Many South Asians Conflicted About Jindal's Win
Nearly all the news stories about Bobby Jindal's victory Saturday in the Louisiana governor's race mentioned that the 36-year-old Republican was the son of immigrant parents, the first Indian-American to win a governorship or that he will be the first nonwhite governor of Louisiana since Reconstruction."Have I popped champagne? Yes, I have," Anna John wrote in a blog posting lined to from the South Asian Journalists Association Web site. "No, I don't believe in teaching Intelligent Design, I certainly am not an advocate of getting rid of a woman's right to choose and I still support hate crime legislation.
"I can guzzle bubbly despite all that, because there's something else stirring within me — recognition that someone who looks like me did something so significant, combined with an uncomplicated thrill over the fact that Bobby made history.
"There are so many valid reactions to Jindal . . . many of us . . are conflicted about Louisiana's new Governor. The good news is, there are no wrong reactions."
Sree Sreenivasan, a SAJA founder, assembled a collection of stories about the milestone under the headline, "JINDAL: The Day After and The Day After The Day After."
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Role of Race Debated in Coverage of White Shooter
Journalists are examining the role that race played in the coverage of the mass shooting at a majority-black Cleveland high school in which the shooter, Asa Coon, was white, a fact not immediately publicized.
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| The Cleveland Plain Dealer eventually secured this photo of Asa Coon. |
"But I believe the coverage of Coon, to date, at this paper and on TV has been a little more nuanced and probing in its search for a comprehensive understanding of the circumstances that led to his rampage— much more so than the other recent carnage we have endured. I can't prove it. But I sense it.
"The profile that has emerged of Coon has been more of that of a 'victim' than a would-be mass murderer.
"It's subtle, but the reportage has been a bit softer, the commentary far less judgmental. The word 'thug' has been kept out of the lexicon of the story. The invariable community screams for the whereabouts of his absentee father have been strangely silent."
Plain Dealer reader representative Ted Diadiun examined many of the racial aspects of the case on Sunday and concluded, "Phillip was right to remind us all that our words and tone don't hit everyone the same way."
In the Lexington (Ky.) Herald Leader, columnist Merlene Davis took to task Fox News host John Gibson.
"On Oct. 10, when news accounts reported a shooting at a Cleveland alternative school, Gibson, a Fox News radio and TV host, quickly worked out a program condemning hip-hop music," she wrote.
". . . The man went from blaming a black student who listens to hip-hop for the shootings to blaming a white kid who listens to hip-hop, to saying once the student committed suicide it was obvious he was white.
"How many racist, insensitive things can be said in such a short time?
In a note to Journal-isms, Debra Adams Simmons, the Plain Dealer's new managing editor, addressed the issue of why no photo of Coon was published immediately.
"We published Asa Coon's photo as soon as we had it, which unfortunately was the second day of this tragic story," she said. "We scoured every possible source — yearbooks, social networking web sites, people who knew him, child welfare agencies — trying to find his picture.
"More than a dozen reporters worked on this story and they were all charged with acquiring his photo. There were reporters who worked exclusively on getting a photo. We learned in our reporting that Asa Coon did not like to be photographed. This made our job even more difficult. Ultimately, someone who knew Asa Coon provided the newspaper with pictures. We also published photos of Asa Coon's brother and mother, both central figures in Asa's life."
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Columnists Debate Meaning of Upsurge in Nooses
"Law enforcement authorities, including the Justice Department, are expressing concern over a recent spate of noose sightings in the aftermath of events in Jena, the small Louisiana town that has been engulfed by racial strife and was the scene of a recent civil rights demonstration," Darryl Fears wrote Saturday in the Washington Post."Nooses have been looped over a tree at the University of Maryland, knotted to the end of stage-rigging ropes at a suburban Memphis theater, slung on the doorknob of a black professor's office at Columbia University in New York, hung in a locker room at a Long Island police station, stuffed in the duffel bag of a black Coast Guard cadet aboard a historic ship, and draped around the necks of black dolls in the Pittsburgh suburbs. The hangman's rope has become so prolific, some say, it could replace the Nazi swastika and the Ku Klux Klan's fiery cross as the nation's reigning symbol of hate."
CNN plans a special one-hour
investigation on Tuesday at 8pm ET/7pm CT, "The
Noose: Lynch Mobs in America," a CNN spokeswoman said. "Anchor Kyra
Phillips looks at the harsh reality of what nooses have
meant through out America's history, and the climate of fear that this
chilling symbol still creates today in the wake of the Jena 6 story."
The development and its implications are also being debated by columnists of color:
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Monroe Anderson,
ebonyjet.com:
Gradu(al Alien)ation: for black students school often becomes a "no passing" zone
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Sharon Stephens Brehm, Ph.D.,
Washington Informer:
Nooses Indicate Lingering Hostility
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Alfred Lubrano,
Philadelphia Inquirer:
Racist act degrades Columbia's meaning
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Sheryl McCarthy,
Newsday:
Unanimous outrage best response to racist symbols
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Clarence Page,
Chicago Tribune:
Don't get hung up on nooses in the news
- Leonard Pitts Jr.,
Miami Herald:
You call it a 'prank,' but I call it terror
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Joy-Ann Reid,
Broward (Fla.) Times: Legacy of lynching lost on noose pranksters
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Barry Saunders,
Raleigh (N.C.) News & Observer:
What a black man should fear (and it's not a noose)
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Short Takes
- "The lack of
candor surrounding the
resignation
of Rick Rodriguez is disturbing to
those of us who believe in the power of the truth," the Newspaper Guild unit at the Sacramento (Calif.) Bee
said on Monday, commenting on Thursday's departure of the Bee's executive editor. "Did he leave standing up for us and for
journalistic principles? Or does the truth lie elsewhere?" Editor & Publisher
wrote, "E&P has made about a dozen calls trying to learn more, to no avail."
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"A brass band in top hats and derbies led the procession from the
church to Beale Street as mourners began the final trip with photographer Ernest Withers to Elmwood Cemetery," Michael Lollar wrote Sunday in the Memphis Commercial Appeal. The service "stretched to almost four hours at Pentecostal Temple Institutional Church of God In Christ. Speaker after speaker exceeded the two-minute limit as they paid tribute to one of the nation's best-known photographers. His camera was placed in the bronze coffin with him."
(c) 2007 Jason Miccolo JohnsonErnest Withers
- "Presidential candidate and Illinois Democratic Sen. Barack Obama wants
Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin to take a
series of intermediary steps before making the leap to rewrite
media-ownership rules, saying that not to do so would be
irresponsible," John Eggerton wrote
Monday in Broadcasting & Cable.
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"An unexpected announcement from former ABC News anchorwoman Carole Simpson came during a question-and-answer segment" with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, the Manchester (N.H.) Union Leader reported on Wednesday. "Simpson, who left broadcasting to teach at Emerson College in Boston, stood up among the crowd and said she was no longer bound by the tenets of professional journalism to remain objective in telling all sides of a story. She was at the meeting with some of her students. 'It's very freeing now that I'm not a journalist and I can speak my mind,' she said to the former first lady. Simpson said she had dreamed that there would be woman president in her lifetime" and endorsed Clinton.
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"Chanting phrases such as 'BET does not reflect me!' a group of
protesters from local Baptist churches demonstrated outside of the
home of Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman this Saturday afternoon, demanding
an end to demeaning depictions of African Americans in the media," Kate Lovely reported
Monday in the Columbia Spectator, student newspaper at Columbia University in New York. "A protest in front of BET President Debra Lee's home in Washington
D.C. went on simultaneously."
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After a gathering of the Online News
Association
in Toronto that was "not overwhelmingly diverse by any stretch of the imagination," Ju-Don Roberts, the managing editor of washingtonpost.com who chaired the
convention, said the association's president would reach out to other journalism organizations. Among the presenters were
Eric Easter of ebonyjet.com, Hiram Enriquez, programming director of Yahoo! Hispanic Americas, and
Katharine Fong of the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News. Journalists of color should be interested in the organization because, "When you come to ONA, you're really looking at the people at the cutting edge of the industry," Roberts told
Journal-isms. Next year's conference is scheduled for Washington. Some 600 attended last week.
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"Ex-president of Mexico Vicente Fox thought he was going to have a
low-key interview when he arrived at the studios of Telemundo 52 in
Los Angeles, but he got more than he bargained for when the reporter
asked him some uncomfortable questions about a current scandal
regarding properties owned by his wife, Marta Sahagun," the Web site vivirlatino.com
reported
on Wednesday. "In town to
promote his English-language autobiography, Fox sat down with reporter
Rubén Luengas and it didn't take long for sparks to fly and for the
ex-president to eventually explode. . . if you're
interested in cutting to the chase, Fox calls Luengas a battery of
names, among them 'liar' and 'vulgar.'"
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"Looking back at the furor over his words in 2004," Bill Cosby, promoting his new "Come on, People: On the Path From Victims to Victors,"
co-written by Harvard psychiatrist Alvin F. Poussaint, "still bears a
grudge against the media — particularly The Washington Post — which
gave prominence to a few out-of-context quotes from his remarks," Eugene Kane, columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
wrote
on Sunday. "Those
words made headlines fueled by the idea of one of the nation's most
famous African-Americans speaking out so strongly about issues in the
black community that many others wanted to avoid."
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In an on-air shake-up, WTKR-TV in Norfolk, Va., has declined to renew the contracts of veteran newscasters Priscilla Monti and Lisa Godley, while adding three new faces, Sara Morris from El Paso, Texas, Marie Coronel, a general assignment reporter from Hagerstown, Md., and Laila Muhammad, a general assignment reporter from Greenville, N.C., Roberta T. Vowell reported Saturday in the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot.
Lisa Godley
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Before she decided to make no comment, Rebecca Aguilar, the reporter
suspended
from KDFW-TV in Dallas last week after viewers thought she was callous toward her interview subject,
wrote
to a complaining viewer, "I'm sorry you took my story the wrong way" and defended her actions. Rafael Olmeda, president of the National Association of
Hispanic Journalists, which had named Aguilar Broadcast Journalist of the Year,
told
Tom Maurstad, media critic of the Dallas Morning News,
"You can disagree with the professionalism of her interview tactics,
but the punishment is all out of proportion to her
offense, and that it's directed at only one person is patently
unfair."
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Under the headline, "Channel 11's Hate O'Clock News," the New York Post's Phil Mushnick Sunday
blasted
reporter Vanessa Tyler's story on an Orthodox Jewish man beaten into critical condition
by a man using a baseball bat. After noting that the suspect is a black male and the incident is being investigated as a hate crime,
Tyler said, "Some people say that people get along here. Other people say
[that] the Jewish community is clique-ish and un-neighborly." Wrote Mushnick: "Good grief. Does that mean that there was some justification for a
member of that Jewish community to be beaten nearly to death with a
baseball bat?"
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"The Cleveland Indians' shot at the World Series is reopening old
wounds for many American Indians and human rights activists, who say
the team's nickname and logo perpetuate stereotypes.
But a team spokesman said Friday people need to understand the history
behind the nickname and the logo is an 'individual perception issue,'" Daniel J. Chacon wrote
Saturday in the Rocky Mountain News. The Boston Red Sox dashed the Indians' hopes for the World Series by beating Cleveland 11-2 on Sunday night.
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"Over 10 weeks after the murder of Chauncey Bailey, the newspaper he
worked for is struggling to maintain its place as the premier
African-American newspaper in the Bay Area. In his first on-the-record
interview since the murder, Oakland Post publisher Paul Cobb and his
lawyer Walter Riley talk about the day Bailey was killed and their
determination to keep the paper afloat," Kevin Weston wrote
Oct. 11 for the Chauncey Bailey Project.
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"The International Federation of Journalists has condemned the
assassination on Friday of a leading radio journalist in Somalia where
a wave of brutal and targeted attacks has claimed eight media victims
this year. On the same day a number of incidents across the country
suggested independent media face a new wave of intimidation," the Shabelle Media Network in Somalia
said
on Monday.
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"The Democratic Republic of Congo on Saturday banned 22
private television channels and 16 radio stations as they had fallen
foul of national media laws, the information minister said,"
according
to Agence France-Presse.
"The ban in particular affects a television channel and radio network
owned by Jean-Pierre Bemba, an exiled former vice president and rebel
leader and an arch-foe of President Laurent Kabila."
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Ebony and Ivory: Clarence Page and Don Imus
by Philip Nobile
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| Philip Nobile |
"I would not have fired him for the 'nappy-headed ho's' comment, but I regret that he may fill the shoes of a civil rights lawyer," Kuby said last week.
Imus regulars will be examining their consciences regarding future guest shots. But who will be surprised if grasping politicians and journalists with books for sale or less find forgiveness in their hearts? "Has Imus suffered enough?" wondered Imus collaborator Chris Matthews during a "Hardball" debate between speed-talker Michael Eric Dyson and Pitchfork Pat Buchanan. Dyson pointed out that white men have never paid a price for smearing black women. Buchanan replied that Imus was "a victim of hatred."
Matthews dodged a bullet at a recent book signing at the Barnes & Noble at New York's Lincoln Center when an anti-Imus journalist tried unsuccessfully to pass him a note with the following question: "Would you consider making the following Act of Contrition? Mea maxima culpa, like many straight, white, non-immigrant journalists, I sold my soul to Don Imus, a dry drunk scoundrel who used 'nigger' in private and 'homo,' 'lesbo,' and 'sambo' in public. And for my penance, I promise to shun his new show."
In the death throes of "Imus in the Morning" last April, Imus desperately floated the idea of hiring a black to cover his racist history and flaunt his post-Rutgers redemption. Few blacks had ever appeared on the program and former guests like Gwen Ifill, Ed Bradley, Stanley Crouch and Al Sharpton had boycotted the show since 2000.
Clarence Page is not so particular. "I'm not trying to stop him from making a living," said Page. "But I don't expect him to invite me back. I may be wrong, but I think he feels some personal sense of betrayal ever since I pushed him to take 'the pledge.' Besides, if he does invite me back and I rejoin his stable, he runs the risk of my being offended again and my surprising him on the air. I don't think he likes surprises. But that doesn't mean I'd say no. I'm willing to give him a chance, now that he's paid his six months of penance. He has a big audience of folks who don't watch the gabfests on which I usually appear. Alas, as you've probably guessed by now, my standards of decency are not quite as strict as yours."
The pledge Page referred to was a corker. Imus brought him on the show to counter the lousy publicity generated by a tough 2000 tompaine.com op-ad in the New York Times. The ad repeated some typical Imus nasties and tried to shame big-name guests by mentioning their names. Page ambushed him with a pledge that declared an end to the slurs of the past.
Amazingly, Imus promised to stop all references to blacks as "gorillas," "pimps," "knuckle-dragging morons" and Colt '45 swizzlers; to quit playing minstrel-show, black-voice parodies and demeaning "Amos 'n' Andy" cuts; to cease wielding epithets like "homo," "lesbo," "load-swallower" and "carpet-muncher" aimed at public figures like Hillary Clinton, Jodie Foster, Kevin Spacey and Bill Bradley; and to squelch anti-ethnic comments such as "Gunga Din" and "Sambo" for Indians and "eating dirt sandwiches" for Zimbabweans. "Mogadishu" metaphors for New York City were also set aside. Yet before the program was over, the pledge was broken.
Imus needs to renew his anti-bigotry pledge, if he has any hope for recovery. You can take Imus out of the swamp, but the stench lingers on.
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