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WSBG's Gary in the Morning out over comments

I firmly believe in anyone's Constitutional right to express his opinion. But, you must remember, if it offends your employer, or advertisers, or enough of the public, your job security is in jeopardy. In Pennsylvania, your employment may be terminated for no justifiable reason at all. It is the employer's right to fire you. You lose. No litigation.

So, open mouth; take your chance. That's just the way it is. We must not step on anyone's toes, nor hurt anyone's feelings. It's enough to induce projectile vomit! I guess you know how I feel about this entire Imus fiasco.

I must go now, [EDIT]


[EDIT-offensive content]
 
I know very little about the Gary situation. But regarding Imus (who has since been fired), he has a history of spewing hate filled vitriol before. He can say sorry until he is blue in the face, but there is no doubt in my mind that he is a racist. He has made racial comments several times before. Does he have a First Amendment right to say what he wants. Sure. But what people sometimes forget is that other people have a First Amendment right to respond, including the right to not listen to his program or any other program that his station puts out. Further, his employer has the right to pull the plug on his program (which has since happened). This situation was not going to go away for Imus' employers. Imus can spew his hate as much as he wants, but I don't have to listen to it and his employer does not have to tolerate it. That's our First Amendment rights.

And to the Rutger's women's basketball team: Fred Barnes (from the Weekly Standard no less) put it the best on Fox News. You guys have a lot to be proud of and you should flick Imus off your shoulder like you would a mosquito.
 
One more thing about Imus suddenly being sorry for these comments... Have you ever accidentaly uttered something and immediatly knew it was wrong and did a "backstep"? Imus has a "dump" switch, but never used it... They laughed when he uttered this pharse.. no one gasped and took him to task on the spot! It was only after it hit the fan that Imus started damage control. That's what makes him a racist... he wasn't sorry and would have continued this line of degrading language, had it not been for an outcry from the public. Imus has long been a dried up shell of what he used to be, surrounded by talented characters that more than support this unfunny cronie! He makes a living out of calling everyone under the sun an IDIOT and degrading everyone.
His firing is about 10 years too late. By the way... If Imus came knocking on Rick Musselmans door looking for a job, at Gary's old salary, tell me what you think Mr high & mighty would do... ooooh ratings!
 
emo said:
...By the way... If Imus came knocking on Rick Musselmans door looking for a job, at Gary's old salary, tell me what you think Mr high & mighty would do...
Click to expand...

He'd try to get him for a few dollars less offering 'a great work environment and company commitment to rebuilding the brand' in return. Don't believe him Don, it's all a smoke screen.

Ummmm... can I still say 'smoke'? Sorry if I offended anyone. :-X
 
Rebuilding Nassaus Pa. cluster is like Rebuilding friggin Iraq, except the hand to hand combat is worse in Easton and Stroudsburg, lots of folks getting stabbed in the back and blown out of the building.. hahaha... What Nassau needs there is a MOAB... that should do the job.... Alright maybe MOAB is overkill, at least a Daisy Cutter....
 
What totally astounds me is that no one, and I mean NO ONE, has recognized the tens of millions of dollars of free publicity this has generated. Imus gets a chunk of it, the Rutgers' women are now known coast to coast, and internationally, and every network and website involved has benefited from this incident. I haven't listened to Imus since his W-ENNNN-B-C days, he never floated my boat, although I find him more intelligent and well-read than Stern, but John Donald Imus is far from gone. His remarks were stupid, really stupid.

Gary(never heard and don't know the man)was trying to grab a piece of the action, and parlay it into a gain for himself. Did it bite him on the butt? Maybe...maybe not. Give it time, we'll see.
 
BTW, I do recognize that Nassau may have been looking for an excuse to push Gary out the door because, by virtue of him sticking around as along as he had, he might have become "expensive" by their standards. CBS could have been thinking the same about Imus. So much of radio has turned into a game of maximizing every penny of immediate cash flow, with no regard to how cuts impact the future...

Since I wrote my post a few days ago, Imus has been fired--so that part no longer applies. Here's what does apply, though.

I can't really speak to Gary Smith's longtime performance, though I gather he was very active in the community. Never heard the guy on the radio.

I did, however, hear a lot of Don Imus--from Cleveland to NYC to syndication & networking. Hundreds--thousands-- of hours & shows over the years. Was a regular daily listener for about 5 years when I lived within daily earshot. I listened because of the humor--which was occasionally hilarious, often stupid, but usually enough to draw a laugh. I listened for the political stuff--which was occasionally riveting, often boring, but usually insightful. In all of that time, I heard Don take unwarranted shots at hundreds of public figures and make hundreds of intemperate remarkes, but never once heard him make a racist comment. From the history laid out last week, I gather he did make a couple--like the Rutgers incident, in failed attempts at humor. But those were the exception, not the rule. The everyday content--30,000+ hours of it, over 3 decades--had nothing to do with racism.

The people taking the biggest shots at the guy last week had no idea what Don Imus was like on the radio. They never listened to him. They were acting on what they thought the show was like--not the reality of it. They were just piling on.

They were piling on for every nasty thing they ever heard anyone else say on the radio. And they were piling on for the things that they had never actually heard on the radio, but believed were on the radio.

It was insane. And it was unfair.
 
Early on in the Imus fiasco there were 'protesters' carrying signs urging boycotts of advertisers and the like. For anyone who saw the footage, did they look like Imus listeners to you?

For what it's worth, at least Imus actually SAID the offending words. Gary used the phrase in a contest while poking fun at Imus (who aired on WSBG's sister AM). With very little fanfare, the brain trust at Nassau canned Gary. Some would say even before the ink was dry on a single protest sign. Now, Nassau hasn't been holding itself up as a great example of management intelligence recently, but this takes the cake.

It seemed like Nassau was looking for an excuse to cut the expense of WSBG's talent, and this opportunity presented itself. Now the calls for listener and advertiser boycotts are deafening. What could have been handled masterfully from a promotions standpoint has backfired into a bigtime image problem.

I hope Gary never returns to Nassau, and finds greener pastures as so many alumni have.
 
Jeff and Jack & Coke,

Very good points. And a very similar thing happened in Stroudsburg. The people that protested Gary, were the ones who didn't listen to the station. Its the kick a man while hes down syndrome and everyone piles on...
And Nassau used the fog of war to pull the plug on a show they deemed too expensive and easily replaceable by cheaper syndicated programming. WVPO is totally automated, Lite 107 has only a morning show and the PD (Rod Bauman) doing some live afternoon drive, other than that its voicetracked, now WSBG. Rob Banks (The APD) does the live afternoon drive, and everything else is voicetracked (Well for now, the morning show has 2 kids that Nassau probably pays $10 per hour combined) Bottom line, its all about, the bottom line. Nassau has made very poor decisions in expanding the company in New England, and now they are paying the piper through out the whole cluster. Not sure if Gary had a contract, but if he did, then this is the perfect way for Nassau to break it, by invoking a "morals" clause or however else they gussy it up. Its all about $$$..
Lou Mercanatanti is a used car sales man, thats how he started in the biz, and hes sitting on a 1972 Pinto, without the gas tank Mod, he just got rear ended, and the fuel is leaking out, hes trying to keep it from exploding, but fuel always finds an ignition source, and this whole thing WILL detonate. Firing Gary is like amputating your arm, to fix a paper cut.... and now Nassau will pay the ultimate price, and as an ex employee who was treated like a piece of dirt, I am soooooo glad to see it, I laugh at all of you stupid bastards, you too will soon know what its like to be jobless, enjoy the ride in your Pinto....
 
The sad thing about all of this--and I'm sure that a lot of people don't realize it--is that the bread and butter of other people is very much affected by the firing of an on-air person like Gary or Imus. Usually, these jocks have a crew. What happens to the crew in a case like this?

Believe me, the crew probably has no input into remarks like this. They're just trying to pay their bills like the rest of us out here. NOT FAIR!!!
 
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