05.02.07
Racism On The Radio: A New Trend?
Shortly after CBS’ Don Imus was fired for his remarks, Clear Channel’s Barbara Stanton was suspended for racially-insensitive comments she made on her radio program.
I had heard of neither broadcaster before their respective incidents. Imus was apparently trying to be funny. Coverage of the event refers to him as a “shock jock,” so it may have been his job to generate controversy (and therefore higher ratings).
Stanton, here in the sleepy Victor Valley, could not have been much of a shock jock–that genre would never survive here in the conservative High Desert. Her words came during a serious discussion about the acquisition of the local bank by an out-of-the-area bank. That the words were serious, and that they come so soon after Imus’ experience is disturbing, to say the least.
Unfortunately, besides being out of line in her expression, Ms. Stanton is also misinformed about the responsibilities of the CEO of a publicly-traded bank. Ron Wilson, CEO of DCB had apparently been interviewed on her program recently, without mentioning buyout talks. Well, I am sorry if he has to obey the laws relating to insider information, but there are some things that can not be revealed except under specific conditions.
As a side note, Jonathan Schwartz of Sun has had a running discussion with the SEC about finding a way to publish announcements on Sun’s site at the same time or even before releasing the information to the traditional channels, because most individual investors do not get those announcements until the next day, when they appear in the Wall Street Journal and other financial publications. This gives large institutions a leg up on reacting to any news or announcement. Schwartz believes that a standardized way of displaying that information on the company site would be a better way to reach investors, because they tend to check the site for information anyway.
What is this thing with degrading groups of people because of their ancestry? After several civil rights movements and hundreds of years of progress, is this all the distance we have come?
On the other hand, I favor freedom of expression. If people feel that they can express such sentiments, we will be more likely to know who actually has those sentiments. It makes it a lot easier to understand it when certain things happen.
Mr. Imus, you need some Black friends. Ms. Stanton, you need some Asian friends. I don’t just mean that you know one another. I mean friends to the point that you get upset when you go with them to a conference and the hotel suddenly has no rooms available; to the point where you get angry when everyone at the restaurant has ordered and been served, but your friends are still waiting for someone to come and take their orders; and to the point where you are mad when people start talking with accents and repeating ethnic stereotypes about your friends’ presumed ancestry.
lnxwalt said,
May 2, 2007 at 20:29
A small, locally-owned business should never accept this kind of conduct, because you have to be responsive to the needs and perceptions of your community. This kind of misbehavior in today’s society is purely an effect of powerful corporations getting monopolies, oligopolies, or near-monopolies, in a particular field.
Thus, if we want to help reduce this kind of abuse, we need financially-viable, locally-owned, locally-programmed, locally-staffed media outlets in nearly every part of our nation, outlets that are powerful enough to give the big corporates a run for their money. We also need to carry this idea into the rest of our industries–locally-owned supermarkets are likely to give far better service than “Big Super MegaCorp Inc” stores would give.