You make an IMPORTANT point, with deep historic roots...
gr8oldies said:
It wasn't Imus's regular listeners who were offended. The comment would have passed unnoticed if it weren't for self-appointed "monitors".
My point precisely...
...though stated in a more pejorative fashion. And I say so knowing that my clinical, Spock-like approach may only cause the emotional to emote more.
Nothing that enters the public domain exists only-in-the-moment any more.
Here in what's-been-called "The YouTube Era," it is only prudent to presume that ANYTHING is captured forever more.
Imus invited what ex-Senator George Allen invited, posterity.
Their gaffes aren't just sealed in one of those lucite cubes that we use to preserve souvenirs.
The lucite cubes skidded around cyberspace at hyperspeed.
Since I offered my point a-couple-boxes-ago that "this isn't about Free Speech," comes this item, here in North Carolina:
Over the weekend, the Ku Klux Klan stuffed what newspaper sales reps call "a FSI" ("Free-Standing Insert," those circulars you find in your Sunday newspaper), into a local newspaper...without the newspaper's permission.
News people at the radio station I'm visiting here tell me that this is a familiar Klan tactic. In the wee hours, Klansmen lurk to observe the newspaper's distribution system. They clock when-and-where-bundles-of-newspapers-are-tossed-off-trucks-pre-dawn, to-be-picked-up later by paper boys, at news stands, etc. As soon at the truck zooms off, they quickly stuff their FSIs into the papers, as though they had purchased that placement from ad sales...which they'd never get the chance to do, since the papers choose not to sell the Klan a FSI for the hate message found in newspapers this past weekend.
We-who-disagree with what the Klan has to say suffer their right to say it, because we cherish Free Speech. Those-YOU-might-find-repulsive are YOUR Free Speech "overhead."
"Say-whatever-you-want, just don't say it here," the newspapers tell The Klan. Newspapers may. They're unregulated. They're exercising THEIR Free Speech rights by rejecting the Klan. So the Klan goes stealth, and trespasses in the fashion they did, because it's the only way they get into the paper, a more-efficient medium than marching, which risks physical injury.
Heck, Imus could have taken-to-the-street too. But rather than standing on the sidewalk in New York, calling passing women what he called the Rutgers hoop team, he chose radio.
Over-the-air broadcasting is held to a higher test, because our founding fathers recognized that -- unlike less-scarce satellite radio, HBO, or other non-spectrum audio/video media -- AM/FM/UHF/VHF spectrum is finite. So spectrum is deemed public property. WE own it. And we hold station owners -- who enjoy FREE use of that finite, commonly-held, natural resource -- to an even more ambitious standard, committing them to operating "in the public interest, convenience, and necessity."
In that role, broadcasters MAY NOT deny, for instance, a robed Klansman, radio or TV time, provided that he is a qualified political candidate, since political advertising content cannot be censored. The founding fathers cherished political dialogue THAT much.
My-uncle-the-judge reminds me that not ALL Speech is Free. You'll get in dutch by, for instance, hollering "FIRE!" in a crowded theatre.
Broadcasters also answer to the marketplace, since, without advertising revenue, they can't keep the transmitter turned on. The public used the marketplace to reject Imus. The offended organized and made their voice heard in the marketplace. Call those advertisers "timid" or "responsive." WE can call 'em anything we want. WE don't answer to their shareholders, and employees.
Calling the offended "self-appointed" is appropriate, and what the founders intended. We The People own the airwaves. Got a beef with something YOU "monitor" on AM/FM/UHF/VHF? Round up YOUR OWN public support, and make your voices heard, to public sector regulators (if you regard what-you've-monitored as "indecent") or to private sector advertisers (if you regard what-you've-monitored as "offensive").
Flex the system.
