Sunday, April 15, 2007
Ugh
This is the last I am going to write about this episode since I have already written about it and since you are hard pressed not to find another blogger writing about it. But I was struck by the discussion on NBC's "Meet the Press" this morning between moderator Russert and Gwen Ifill, David Brooks, John Harwood, and Eugene Robinson. In fact, at times this conversation got away from moderator Russert and he was assigned a "hands on his seat" role. Further, it was clear that Ifill came in with an axe to grind:
You know, it’s interesting to me. This has been an interesting week. The people who have spoken, people who have issued statements, the pop—the people who haven’t. There’s been radio silence from a lot of people who’ve done this program who could’ve spoken up and said, “I find this offensive” or “I didn’t know.” These people didn’t speak up.
Tim, we didn’t hear that much from you.
David, we didn’t hear from you.
It was that kind of day. The remainder of the program again focused on the race frame with very little said about how the white girls on the team were offended. In fact, the pious Ms. Ifill herself praised the black basketball players on the team, claiming at one point to get "weepy" and then asking: "When are we going to see roadblock live coverage of black teenagers who are about something, who are straight A classical pianists? We are not going to see that" at which point Eugene Robinson chimes in that "...there are so many fine young African-Americans who...are doing great and are...going to be leaders of...society...in the next few years. And you know, we like to celebrate that. We should celebrate that more." Again, by focusing only on the race of the women it leaves out the team members who are not black and leaves out the larger issue of the continued degradation of women in popular culture, not to mention the complete lack of attention to womens sports in this country.
And today's discussion also left one big issue alone--the power of advertisers to dictate what is and is not acceptable behavior and the power of advertisers to tell us what we should or should not see. Russert notes that the end came when the sponsors "bailed" on Imus, and Ifill adds a wrinkle by telling us that it was more because of black CEO's at the sponsoring companies and inside Imus's corporate parent that severed the relationship where 20 years ago this might not have happened given the lack of minority faces then in corporate America.
While I agree that minorities have made advancements in corporate America, I think Ifill is out of her mind to think that the sponsors bailed because of minorities within upper management at the various corporations that sponsored the show. I think her conclusions are based on the fact that a powerful media figure who made the host company, and the advertisers, a lot money would have been immune from firing over insensitive language a decade ago because there were not powerful forces inside the companies pushing for the firing. It is debatable. I think the more likely conclusion is that given the current economic climate, where we face challenges from foreign competitors, no company is going to risk even a slight drop in the bottom the line, so better to distance oneself from bad news now rather than later.
That is my stand and I am sticking to it.
