Why talk to Imus?

And so with the beginning of Week Two, the media moves into the part of the story that says, “Forget about what Imus said; listen to this.”

Wednesday’s “Today Show” featured interviews with a black pastor, the Rev. Dr. DeForest Soaries, who said there’s “a double double standard” when it comes to racist, sexist, misanthropic language, and who says it.

"If Don Imus had called the wife of a CBS executive an ugly whore he’d have been fired,” said Dr. Soaries.

But, the story suggested, if a rapper on a CD or in a video, or a black comedian on stage or television calls any black woman that very thing, “no one bats an eye.”

Don Imus pointed that out. He said the language he used originated not with him, but with them.

Does that make it okay? Heck, no. The Rutgers basketball coach, who can get on a fascinating roll once she starts talking, said, “The society is what it is because of those in leadership roles. He (Imus) is three times the age of a rapper. If we don’t set the example, there can’t be a return to real decency. It starts with each one of us and what we do.”

Well, that sounds noble, and great, but starting with each one of us is not a very good strategy, because, one, we wouldn’t make much of a difference, and two, many of the each ones are not at all interested, if the television and radio ratings are correct, in a return to real decency. Goodbye to the “American Idol” and “Survivor” genre of broadcasting, most of radio talk shows, and practically all of the blogosphere, which derive their success from dropping indecencies onto human beings by the skiploader-full.

It would have been better, and way more realistic, if the Rutgers coach, C. Vivian Stringer, had said that the society is what it is because of those in leadership roles who sign checks. The only meaningful development in the Imus story so far is the announcement that advertisers like Proctor & Gamble, Staples and Bigelow are pulling their advertising from CBS Radio and MSNBC during the Imus show.

People can huff themselves up over this until they explode, but it only gets scary to the people who look at what losing Imus will do to the revenue stream and all its tributaries. The New York Times points out how cheap it is for MSNBC to throw Imus into a morning simulcast slot for three hours. How are they going to fill that time if Imus goes, and how are they going to pay for it? It is hard to imagine a significant number of people watching a telecast of a radio show, but their money is as green as anybody else’s, and if a televised radio show commands enough eyeballs, that is all the advertisers want. And if the advertisers are happy, CBS and NBC are happy.

This is not a story about a new stage in the demise of decent society. When Imus uttered the unfortunate words, they were heard by maybe two million people in the combined radio-television audience. That is roughly six-tenths of one percent of the American population. Many Americans, hearing this story for the first time, said, “Don who?” But this is an amazing story about the Second Law of Media: “The media is an exercise in the power of small numbers.” A customer base of six-tenths of one percent makes advertisers happy, networks richer, and Don Imus famous. The Times said he makes $10 million a year.

Rappers get rich and famous with racist, sexist lyrics that are considered an industry success with sales of one million units. That won’t change even when incidents like the Imus show blow the decency debate up to the national level, on television programs like “Today” or the evening news shows, whose combined rating is under 30, meaning more than 70 percent of concerned citizens are doing something else. Nothing will change until those in the society’s media leadership roles stop signing checks. The Rutgers team shouldn’t be meeting with Don Imus. It’s those leaders they really want to talk to.