Freedom of Speech Lives!

One does tend to feel a little sorry for Don Imus.

Yes, he’s an old, pompous loud-mouth who isn’t really relevant to the public discourse anymore. But he’s a guy who has been doing the only thing that he knows how to do for the past 4 decades… and doing it relatively well, if you check out his ratings.

“Shock Jocks” aren’t called that for nothing. They are out there to attract listeners by playing to people’s tendency to rubber-neck at a car-wreck. “What will he say next?” is probably the biggest reason folks like Opie & Anthony, Howard Stern and Don Imus are on the air. What is said is almost always off-color and is often patently offensive to some group or another. These guys are professional verbal bullies.

As distasteful as the idea of folks like this are, there is a place in our society for them. “Mainstream” media tends to look down on them, but their numbers can’t be denied. Imus was the last of the Big Three on terrestrial radio, but the other two, Opie & Anthony and Howard Stern, have moved over to satellite radio and helped Sirius and XM quadruple their overall subscriber base. Clearly these guys, and their stock in trade, have market value.

So that’s where the sympathy comes from. A pioneer in his field who was one of the first of his kind, and is one of the last ones standing, has fallen. That he was done in by his own hubris makes it no less tragic.

But…

This guy is an ass. His blatantly racist remarks were beyond the pale. Referring to women as “nappy-haired hos” is not something that I want to hear from an old rich white dude talking to his old, rich white buddies. Which is why I did not listen to his show. Frankly, I don’t think that the public airwaves should carry that sort of vitriol and I’m glad that he’s gone.

To those who worry about the chilling effect that CBS’ firing of Imus, you need to… well… chill. Local talk show jerk Jay Severin was quoted in today’s Globe:

Some radio hosts railed against the cancellation yesterday,
saying a politically-charged climate put a damper on free expression. On the air yesterday afternoon, as the Imus news broke, WTKK's Jay Severin said he believed his own show was in jeopardy.

"We will be the Alamo here," Severin said. "Let there be no doubt about that. You can count on us. The question is, for how long can even we at 96.9 hold out? How long can we hold the barbarians at the gate?"

This is a load of crap. Corporations and radio stations in general have absolutely no obligation to allow anybody to say everything that they want on their airwaves. If he wants more “freedom of speech” he can broadcast on his own radio station. Low-powered signals are cheap to obtain licenses for (something like $100). If other stations want to pick up his show and pay him a fee for the rights to rebroadcast, then they are free to do so. But since he’d still be broadcasting over the air he’d still be under the auspices of FCC regulations.

Want even more “freedom?” Even if the satellite companies won’t take him, he can start up his own website and broadcast online. If there’s an audience for him, they will migrate there. Just ask NPR’s Christopher Lydon.

Lydon was axed from the show that he created on NPR, “The Connection,” when he argued about who owned the show and demanded more money. NPR retained the rights to the show and let him go. As the owners of the radio stations that carried his signal, they could choose who and when people are heard for any reason that they want.

“Fine” Lydon said, and off he went to the Internets, where decent numbers of his listeners followed him. Clearly, his voice and perspective had market value because “The Connection” folded without him. Eventually, NPR asked him to come back and now they broadcast his show again under the name “Open Source.” He’s even back in his old time slot.

So stop crying foul all you First Amendment whack-jobs, because freedom abounds! Interest groups have every right to demand that broadcasters who use the public airwaves adhere to whatever standards they want, and broadcasters are free to choose to adhere to those standards or to completely ignore them. Advertisers are free to do the same. And potty-mouthed shock jocks like Don Imus are free to say whatever it is they want, so long as they control the venue in which they say it.