[Sluss]

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Welcome to 1991. It amazes me that people still don't understand that there is a difference between private speech and public speech. It's amazing that people don't understand that you can't use ethnic slurs unless you are a part of that ethnic group. It is just sad that people get so pissy when someone is held accountable for their speech.

[/ QUOTE ] Your right "ethinic slurs" are wrong. You can't say them shouldn't say them and you should be punished for using these on the air. But I think this is one of the problems we have. Why can you use an ethnic slur if your part of that ethnic group? It sets a double standard. If this is really destroying race relations in our society then it is the same no matter who says it. I thought our goal in all of this is to have an intergrated society where everyone is looked upon as equals. If we keep putting ourselves and other people into categories we can never reach that point.

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Imus was done as soon as this story made it past day 2, he didn't help himself by trying to stay in the spotlight with his apologies. He should have issued the standard public statement apology and dissapeared for 2 weeks. I think instead of putting on the tin-foil hat and looking for some master plan to remove him you should look to cable news channels. 24 hours of content is a lot of air to fill and Imus came along when nothing better was going on, so his story stayed on the air.

I would be more concerned about this if he was some edgy news guy doing real investigative reporting and was silenced because of some dark secret he was getting close to, but he wasn't. He was a loud mouthed shock jock who said something stupid. Too many of them around any way.

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The real irony in all of this if the radioathon wasn't on yesterday and today he would have been insta banned for two weeks and this would have blown over and would have never even made it half as far. So for trying to to good, he lost his job. I think that is a great message to send.

One of the things you learn day one in radio is that you have to set a line for yourself. Which has a lot to do with the station you work for. Then you spend your whole show running right to that line, but never crossing it. Having to reset that line is one of the most difficult things to do.

I'm not sure if you ever listend to Imus. But there is nobody doing the type of show he was at the scope he was doing it at. He would be goofing around with John McCain, John Kerry, Rudy Gulianni and Tim Russert all in the same day. There was no other show where these guys opened up like this and it will have a pretty big impact on this election. He was a shock jock that was accepted by Washington and political people giving him a broad range of people and ideas on the air.

There are alot of people who I don't like on TV and radio. Imus was one of them. That doesn't mean I didn't understand what he was doing and the purpose it served.