[Economics] Capitalism at Work: The Firing of Don Imus

The weeklong sabbatical at The Rudy Word left a void in the coverage of the Don Imus controversy and his eventual firing from NBC Radio. I’ll pick it up here:

The bulk of the questions surrounding the incident focused on whether or not Imus’s comments were inappropriate enough to earn him the boot.

Let me first say two things. One, calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team a bunch of “nappy-headed hoes” is in-and-of-itself worthy of getting thrown out on your ass no matter how popular you are. And two, the shock jock style of radio is such an old joke, a format stuck so far in the past, that kicking one of its perpetuators off the air is a blessing to all forms of media. [The only thing shocking about shock jocks is how moronically they can shoot their mouths off and in a matter of five syllables cause their entire careers to implode while otherwise just hoping that tasteless humor is still funny, which it is not. Check out this Advertising Age commentary from Donny Deutsch on why “nice is the new black.”]

But beyond those two points, the firing of Don Imus was completely appropriate. Why? Because the market said so. His termination was not (and should never be considered) a step toward a better cultural understanding of racial commentary in the media (any serious discussion on this will come with Imus only as a footnote). It was, however, a beautiful display of capitalist forces at work. Advertising Age has in interesting report about it here.

Earlier this week I caught a few minutes of Sean Hannity discussing the incident, and, not surprisingly, Hannity took the position that the Imus firing represented a double-standard, a form of “selective” punishment, comparing what Imus said to what hundreds of rap artists record. There is just one little difference Sean: Rappers calling women “hoes” makes money; Don Imus calling the Rutgers women’s basketball team “hoes” loses money.

I am not defending the moral vacuum of mainstream rap. In fact, I find it deplorable, which is why I won’t buy it (that is my form of pro-active, capitalist protest…not that it stops millions of other white suburbanites from buying it). I am defending the system of capitalism.

Two days after Imus made his offensive, and ultimately suicidal, remark (and still days before Al Sharpton came onto the scene, before the controversy had hit every major media outlet) Procter & Gamble, the nation’s largest advertiser, pulled its ad dollars from Imus’s show. Commenting in the Advertising Age article, a P&G spokeswoman said, “We think we're accountable first to our consumers. This particular venue where our ad appeared was offensive to our target audience. And so that's not acceptable to us.”

Days later American Express, General Motors and GlaxoSmithKline walked away from Imus as well, a good sign that capitalism stills has a few strong and healthy muscles. And the beauty of that muscle is that it came from the ground up.

I don’t think Procter & Gamble even had to wait for the fallout to realize that Imus’s comments were unacceptable to its consumers, and the company took immediate action. Other advertisers, hearing how offended their audiences were, and particularly after hearing the heartfelt comments from the Rutgers coach and team members, abandoned Imus for greener media pastures.

In my opinion, there is no better reason for firing someone than the fact that they are losing money for your company, and Imus had become a money-bleeding wound on NBC radio.

The beauty of all of this is also the spotlight that it puts back onto consumers and the new forms of media that are challenging the status-quo of old channels (and yes, shock jocks are the status quo). Consumers are spread amongst several media platforms today and advertisers spread out to reach those consumers. Meanwhile, big media pays the price and loses its stranglehold on the American public. In the dawning new age of media, consumers have become increasingly empowered, and when it comes to facing big media, they find an ally in the advertiser, through whom they can appeal their media woes and force change.

This is one reason that shock radio is completely irrelevant in the new age of media. Consumers are no longer interested in “inside jokes” and the “us versus them,” “me versus you” style of content. In this day, inside jokes are YouTube postings viewed by tens of thousands and blogs commented on by individuals from every area of society. Comedy today is not about attacking your nemesis, or getting an easy rise out of people, it is about bringing everyone to the table and exploiting the gray area in between us all for a good laugh. Simply put, it is Stephen Colbert, not Howard Stern.

So, today, the joke (and a beautifully democratic one at that) is on Don Imus, and everyone, maybe even Imus himself (though probably not Sean Hannity), gets it (or at least, if they've read my blog, is beginning to).