Was looking through my old posts for some howlers, but was amused by this story from a Greenstein column way back in 2007 from when Imus called the Rutgers women's basketball team nappy-headed hos.
Quote:
Don Imus won't find a shoulder to cry on here. Chicago's brashest sports radio hosts would not defend their colleague over his insulting remarks regarding the Rutgers women's basketball team.
"You can be funny without being shocking," WSCR-AM 670 afternoon host Terry Boers said. "I don't know that calling someone a 'nappy-headed ho' is particularly funny."
WMVP-AM 1000 afternoon host Dan McNeil called Imus' remarks "stupid," and WSCR morning man Mike North also condemned them.
But all three say it's harder than ever to draw the line between acceptable and offensive.
"The line has been moving consistently since Janet Jackson," McNeil said, referring to the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show and the FCC's decision to hit CBS television with a six-figure fine. "What was acceptable as recently as two years ago no longer is."
McNeil and co-host Harry Teinowitz were suspended last summer for an on-air confrontation that ended with suggestions about kissing each other's body parts.
McNeil also revealed Tuesday that station officials sent him, co-host John Jurkovic and a "Mac, Jurko&Harry" producer to the penalty box last January—"we weren't as much on vacation as it seemed," he said—over a sexual-related joke management deemed tasteless.
"Everything offends somebody these days," McNeil said. "It has gotten to a point where every show should be started with the Lord's Prayer and some preemptive apologies."
North apologized last summer after referring to former Cubs pitcher Jae Kuk Ryu, who is Korean, as a "Chinaman."
Station officials also met with nine local Asian-American leaders to express their remorse.
"Absolutely, I won't say it again," North said Tuesday. "But CBS [Radio] doesn't have the list of things you can and can't say. Then they say: 'Shame on you.' Shame on me? I was saying it for 14 years and nobody said anything. How am I supposed to know?"
North also believes the Imus incident reflects a double standard.
"What he said is absolutely wrong, but it's not a level playing field," he said. "There is a double standard where you can play rap lyrics with those terms in disguise of art."
Boers said he never has been suspended for an on-air comment, even though some believe he and co-host Dan Bernstein straddle the line of good taste.
"We push it," Boers said. "We blur it. All of us go overboard. I plead absolutely guilty on many fronts, too numerous to mention."
Some listeners have criticized Boers and Bernstein for making light of Ron Santo's amputated legs, the result of diabetes. Boers said Tuesday that his wife is diabetic; he contends Santo "uses it as a campaign platform for the Hall of Fame."
Even if you disagree with that, as I do, it's clear the Rutgers basketball players did nothing to warrant the abuse they took from Imus and his producer, Bernard McGuirk.
Speaking on WFAN in New York last week, the pair ridiculed the players, with McGuirk calling them "some hardcore hos."
Said Boers: "You talk about pushing the envelope. We have a show that pushes hard, so I know the feeling. But there are certain lines you don't cross. That was really offensive."
Boers and his CBS radio colleagues take yearly multiple-choice online tests in which they're asked about ethics, sexual harassment and word usage.
"What's the right way to say this? Should there be a penalty for this?" Boers said of the test. "They will ride you until you take it. You have to be brain-dead not to pass."
Boers said CBS officials do not need to worry that he will make an offensive comment akin to Imus'.
"Racial stuff," Boers said, "you can't go there."
KDdidit wrote:
Quote:
Boers and his CBS radio colleagues take yearly multiple-choice online tests in which they're asked about ethics, sexual harassment and word usage.
Well that's good enough for me then...
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