Wikinomics and the Firing of Don Imus
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In the end, Don Imus' racist and sexist words got him fired. But very few people would have been aware that the long-time radio-show host and shock jock uttered those nasty words if it weren't for a blogger. |
Ryan Chiachiere, a researcher for the liberal media watchdog group Media Matters for America, was up at 6:14 a.m. on April 4 and heard Imus refer to the Rutgers University women's basketball team players as "nappy-headed ho's," according to a Page One story in Friday'sWall Street Journal [subscription required]. Later that day, Chiachiere posted a 775-word blog about Imus' comments along with a video of his utterance on the Media Matters website. A week and a day later, Imus was out of a job.
Imus' firing, in one respect, was Wikinomics in action: the American community collaborating together, using the latest information and communications technologies, determined the employment of an individual. Chiachiere's blog got the ball rolling. Imus' firing was a multimedia affair. E-mails quickly followed, then the print and broadcast media picked up the story. The news coverage spurred events: staged protests against Imus. Imus' invective became the topic de jour for online chats, watercooler conversations and late-night pillow-talk. Advertisers pulled adds from Imus In the Morning, produced by CBS Radio, and simulcasted on cable TV by MSNBC. As all the media interacted, and a consensus grew that Imus must go, the pressure mounted for the networks to act.
We've seen it before. Remember Dan Rather? After a four-decade career at CBS News, the former Evening News anchor was forced out after bloggers, conservative and liberal, questioned the authenticity of documents he based a September 2004 60 Minutes report that President Bush, as a Texas Air National Guard officer decades earlier, was found unfit for flight status after he failed to submit to a physical exam. Other media quickly picked up on the bloggers' postings.
No doubt economics played a major part in the departure from the airwaves of Rather and Imus. Rather's Evening News ratings were a distant third to his competitors at ABC and NBC. In the end, he just wasn't generating the kind of ad revenue CBS expected from its star reporter. Imus, if he continued to broadcast, would have lost millions of dollars in commercial ads for the two networks as advertisers pulled their spots from his program.
What makes Imus' dismissal different from Rather's departure from the airwaves is speed. Today, the tumult created by various media working in unintentional harmony can results in quick actions as the community comes to a rapid consensus. About 20 months passed from the ill-fated 60 Minutes report to the time Rather last walked out the doors on West 57th Street. Imus was silenced in eight days.
In a somewhat related incident, my colleague Ed Cone, in his story Beware of Bloggers with Baggage, relates how the blogosphere helped lead to the resignations of two aides to presidential hopeful John Edwards because of past comments they posted on their blogs that some people interpreted as anti-Catholic screeds. In their case, as well as that of Don Imus, they found themselves quickly out of a job because of the speed generated by the blogosphere.
Comments (6)
What he said was dead wrong, but shouldn't have been fired for it. If uyou want to keep things on "unbiased" basis then fire Al Sharpten and J. jackson for the things thay've said about other people...and in the case of Sharpten, was proven wrong, admitted it, but never paid a penny in retrob. WHY?
The media is biased, otherwise they'd also have been fired on the spot.
Posted by Brad | April 17, 2007 3:40 PM
Superb insight. I've been telling my clients about the power of influential bloggers in reputation management. This is a dramatic illustration of just how important it is to include the blogosphere in all crisis management plans.
Posted by Andrea Obston | April 17, 2007 3:52 PM
Can you imagine if blogging were around during the Joe Mcarthy [sp] era?
Posted by John | April 17, 2007 3:52 PM
Just a few comments..
Interesting how advertising controls what we hear on the airwaves...
Considering the influence the blogosphere has just demonstrated, there is a challenge here to get out the word on what is really happening in Iraq and find some justification on why our sons and daughters whom have dedicated and risk their lives out there for what the current Presidency deems for the security of America. What is really turning these wheels? Whose interest is really being served?
Yes, this is a lot bigger than a shock-jock's comments but quite frankly his opinions are not sending folks over to Iraq. The billions of dollars being spent for this contributes to the robbing our domestic programs that help those in need here.
Posted by maf | April 18, 2007 10:34 AM
To fire or not to fire a journalist/talk show host depends on what their REAL job is. Actions speak loudly. From the actions of the networks who fired Imus and Rather, it supports the idea that the REAL job of a journalist/talk show host is to generate money for network/show sponsors, not, as many people expect, to report news "fairly." This is not in itself a bad thing, but it is important to remember. The media has an economic purpose and is not unbiased.
Events are newsworthy when they attract viewers and listeners, and generate positive revenue. Blogging helps the general population express their values, and in that way may help direct the media to be more responsible to meet the audience's expectations of fair and responsible reporting.
Posted by Robin | April 18, 2007 11:12 AM
Business controls media through advertising. The media is much like the Internet in that it is vast, massive, ubiquitous. But it is unlike the Internet in that it is controlled by one
group, business.
The Internet is adopting the same model as television with respect to advertising, they are called popups, header snippets, and page ads. In my eyes, the internet is becoming more commerialized than TV. I do digress.
The real impact the bloggers made was in the speed at which they could raise a flag and get the word out regarding DImus's rude and unwanted remarks. It has accelerated the speed at which guys like DImus are dealt with when they flap their lips and compress air across their vocal chords to offend customers of the businesses that pay for "the show" to air.
I saw someone write, he shouldn't have been fired. My question is, why not? Do you think he would be a good candidate for sensitivity training? If so, you haven't been listening to the guy. He is pretty well set in his ways and I don't get an "I want to change" vibe from him. He said it without regard as to how it would affect his sponsors. On top of that, he has some other issues that revolve around racism, but that isn't why he was fired.
I am not just talking about DImus, you could substitute any of the shock jocks out there that sling verbal diarrhea on a daily basis.
bufo
Posted by Bufo Marinas | November 28, 2007 12:03 PM