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Blogger Spurs US Radio Host's Firing
jas_public writes "The Wall Street Journal reports on the controversial events which ultimately led to the firing of radio shock jock Don Imus. 'At 6:14 a.m. on Wednesday, April 4, relatively few people were tuned into the "Imus in the Morning Show" ... Ryan Chiachiere was. A 26-year-old researcher in Washington, D.C., for liberal watchdog organization Media Matters for America, he was assigned to monitor Mr. Imus's program. Mr. Chiachiere clipped the video, alerted his bosses and started working on a blog post for the organization's Web site.' The article breaks down how that viral video clip and word of mouth outrage reached the ears of the presidents of CBS and MSNBC, ultimately leading to Imus' dismissal."
As someone who used to work for Media Matters, I can tell you there is a whole lot wrong with this writeup in the WSJ.
For starters, there is nothing approaching blogging involved. Media Matters has hired a number of prominent bloggers to work with them, but an organization with offices on K Street in Washington DC, with a staff of about 50, is a far stretch from what folks think of when they think of a blogger. The researchers write their articles to a very precise formula, and then the editorial staff "correct" them and the process goes back and forth quite a number of times before anything is published. Not exactly what the image of the term blogger conjures up, but Media Matters sure likes when people make that mistake.
What's happening here is not Media Matters discovering this horrible outrage and then alerting the rest of the world to it - what's happening is Media Matters trying to take credit for Imus's firing because they monitored his show. They monitor dozens of shows per day, and pick up every off color comment like this and document it over and over again.
Now, if you buy the stereotyped liberal "whiner" point of view, this is indicative of the whole media being a bunch of foul-mouthed bigots. And said bigots having a whole lot of staying power for not getting shit-canned more often. But if you think about it for a second, it's really just Media Matters shooting a spray of bullets, pointing out every time anyone says anything off color, and then taking credit when people get outraged about it because they documented it "first".
The unfortunate thing is that lots of well meaning and powerful leftist funders give Media Matters money because they fail to see this subterfuge, or maybe because they are "whining liberals" themselves.
It's really more indicative of a more general problem in Washington DC - folks there think that everything that happens in our democracy can be traced back to some pressure group inside the beltway. They don't believe in this thing called "grassroots". I wish I could say they are fools, but reluctantly I must admit that they are frighteningly close to correct in many cases - but not this one.
That's not racism. Racism is judging someone by their racial stereotype -- not simply stating one example of a stereotype.
It is not racist, for example, to say "that hassidic jew is wealthy", "that black man robbed me", or "that white guy ignored me." Racism is "he's jewish, he's got money", "he's black, he'll rob me", or "he's white, he can't understand da hood."