Two Major Sponsors Drop Imus

Office Supply Chain Staples And Procter & Gamble Pull Ads From Imus' Show

(CBS/AP)  The fallout from the comments about the Rutgers women's basketball team by radio talk show host Don Imus is continuing. Some advertisers were bailing out from his radio and cable television program, and a director of CBS Corp., said Wednesday the broadcasting company needs a "zero tolerance policy" on racism and that Imus should be fired for his demeaning remarks about the mostly black team.

The program originates from New York radio station WFAN, and is syndicated to other radio stations by CBS Radio. Both, like CBSNews.com, are part of CBS Corp. The program is also simulcast on the cable channel MSNBC.

"He's crossed the line, he's violated our community," Bruce Gordon, a CBS director and former head of the NAACP, said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "He needs to face the consequence of that violation."

Gordon, a longtime telecommunications executive, stepped down in March after 19 months as head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, one of the foremost U.S. civil rights organizations.

He said he had spoken with CBS chief executive Leslie Moonves and hoped the company, after reviewing the situation, would "make the smart decision" by firing Imus rather than letting him return to the air at the end of a two-week suspension that was announced Tuesday.

Office supply chain Staples Inc. and Procter & Gamble Co. said they pulled advertising from Imus' show. Another advertiser, Bigelow Tea, said the remarks have "put our future sponsorship in jeopardy."

"We are deeply saddened by Imus' remarks," said Cindi Bigelow, co-president of Bigelow Tea.

According to the Wall Street Journal, advertisers don't buy time on specific programs on MSNBC, but instead buy time on the channel's overall daytime schedule — so P&G has pulled all its ads off MSNBC.

"Any venue in which our ads appear that is offensive to our target audience is not acceptable to us," the company said in a statement.

Imus is set to begin a two-week suspension on radio and television, beginning Monday. CBS Radio has not said how it will fill his block of time. MSNBC says it will program expanded news coverage.

The show last year generated as much as $20 million in revenue for WFAN, according to media reports. The station is otherwise all-sports; the Imus show is a break in that format. WFAN inherited him from former NBC flagship WNBC-AM, which held the 660 AM frequency.

Civil rights organizations and the National Organization for Women have demanded he be fired.

Rutgers basketball player Kia Vaughn doesn't know what Imus meant when he called her and her teammates "nappy-headed hos," but she's sure that she's not one.

"I achieve a lot, and unless they have given this name 'ho' a new definition, then that is not what I am," said Vaughn, the team's sophomore center.

Vaughn and the other nine members of the Rutgers women's basketball team spoke publicly for the first time Tuesday about comments made last week by Imus the day after the team lost the NCAA championship game to Tennessee.

Wearing matching red and black tracksuits and highlighting the on-court accomplishments and off-court academic accomplishments, the team portrayed the exact opposite image of the racially charged words Imus used to describe them.

The women include a class valedictorian, a future lawyer and a musical prodigy who plays classical compositions on the piano without sheet music. Some of them wiped away tears as their coach, C. Vivian Stringer, criticized Imus for "racist and sexist remarks that are deplorable, despicable, abominable and unconscionable."

"We were fooling around, just trying to describe this team humorously. It was simply how tough they were," Imus said on his show Wednesday morning.

The women, eight of whom are black, called his comments insensitive and hurtful.

The women agreed, however, to meet with Imus privately next Tuesday and hear his explanation.

"We hope not only to let him know who we are as basketball players, but let us see the man behind the radio personality," team captain Essence Carson said on CBS News' The Early Show. "His remarks are completely not us, and we hope to see a man different, a man other than what his remarks proved him to be."

Under what circumstances would the players accept Imus' apology, asked co-anchor Hannah Storm.

"We haven't decided yet," Carson, a junior from Paterson, N.J., replied.

The players also held back from saying whether the two-week suspension was sufficient.

"They are indeed remarkable, and what I was impressed with was their spirit of fairness and lack of hypocrisy, which I don't see any place else, anywhere, in the coverage of any of this," Imus said Wednesday.

The calls for his firing have been led by Rev. Al Sharpton, who had Imus on his own radio show Monday and gave him a lambasting for more than an hour.

"If you can't get redeemed once people make an inflammatory remark, then there are many people who shouldn't be in the public eye, not the least of which is Al Sharpton," media critic and new CBS News senior political correspondent Jeff Greenfield said Wednesday. But Imus "needs to get the point that some of the humor and the humor that some of us haven't called him on, needs to be changed."

Greenfield has been a guest on the Imus show, and was on it Tuesday.

"One of the reasons I would like to see him survive is that when the show is not indulging in bar room, locker room humor. It has an interesting focus on politics and public policy. What that show has lacked is black participants," Greenfield told Early Show co-anchor Julie Chen.

While Imus has used his show to spread insults around — once calling Colin Powell a "weasel" and another time referring to New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson as a "fat sissy" — his comments about the Rutgers women crossed the line, Stringer said.

"It is more than the Rutgers women's basketball team. It is all women's athletes. It is all women," said Stringer, the third-winningest women's basketball coach of all time who has taken three teams to the Final Four.

Imus has apologized repeatedly for his comments. He said Tuesday he hadn't been thinking when making a joke that went "way too far." He also said that those who called for his firing without knowing him, his philanthropic work or what his show was about would be making an "ill-informed" choice.

MSNBC has said it will watch to see whether Imus changes the tenor of future programs.

"When I look at it from my position as a director, where my responsibility is to represent the best interest of the shareholders, it's more complex," Gordon said. "But at the end of the day, the image of CBS is at risk. ... the ad revenue of CBS could be at risk."

"What I expect is for management to take the next two weeks to do their homework," he said. "I hope that the result of their due diligence is to terminate Don Imus."

[chuck6311]

When sponsors let themselves be bullied into pulling their adverising they have lost my respect for their products so I will boycott them. No more CBS or MSNBC for me. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are a couple of con artists ripping off the black people. BYE BYE P&G BYE BYE Staples. I don't drink tea so they won't miss me at Bigelow.

[clamdigger24]

I think Imus has said he was sorry enough. I am disgusted with NBC and CBS and will not watch them again. I will not buy at Staples, or buy a GM car,etc. and will now just Watch Fox News which is fair and balanced. You have let Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton win and this is ridiculous.

I have a sirius radio and would love to listen to him on that.

Goodbye Today Show, which I watched daily and Goodbye CBS.

[coachcheer]

If all of the regular political, entertainment and newscasters who have reaped the rewards of being on the Imus show do not rally around him now, they are cowards and hipocrites. What about the good that Imus has done for children with cancer? Is that not worthy of keeping him on? What about his cry for help for the VA facilites and his support of the Intrepid project? How soon we forget the good a man contributes. Shame on those who do not keep him on the air for such a remark. It is fine if a black person were to use racial slurs, but not for a white man? Come on people-get real. Don Imus is entertaining and once and while steps over the line. Let he who has not sinned cast the first stone! [e-mail]

[kearns_brian]

I get a kick out of Jeff Greenfield, who after years of enjoying the Don Imus gravy train, while at the same time choosing to ignore Imus' regular use of thinly veiled racist, sexist, and derogatory remarks on his show, now is trying to position himself on the high road by claiming loyalty trumps "hypocrisy". Nice try, Jeff, but you've still got a lot of explaining to do.

[teeus]

"Here it is again. We observe freedom of speech for everyone...unless you happen to be WHITE.
Posted by Lolanx"

Okay, I thing y'all need to go back to your high school civics class. "Freedom of Speech" means that you can't be imprisoned for writing or saying something. That speaking your mind isn't ageist the law. As far as I can see, no one has thrown Mr. Imus in jail.

Society, however, is the option to police and monitor itself. The market can vote on APPROPIRATENESS by not listening or sponsoring a speaker of program.

THAT'S freedom of speech.

If it's too complicated to wrap your arms around, think of it this way:

Can you walk up to a sweet 101 year old lady and scream in her face "YOU $UCK!" Yes you can. Does that mean you can put it on TV? Well, you can, but don't be surprised if folks don't watch.

[lolanx]

Here it is again. We observe freedom of speech for everyone...unless you happen to be WHITE.

[teeus]

"If you fire Imus from the radio, I will NOT watch CBS news EVER again!!
Posted by karmel3 at 07:09 PM : Apr 11, 2007"

Whatever. Like you watch CBS news now? I'm guessing only if it's spelled F O X.

[obeylaw]

This old mumbbling hippy needs to go. He should return to the ranch and get a haircut. All the excuses in the world will not correct what he said.

[blaze718]

I guess it was scruffypup98 that I was agreeing with. He said it all. I was so pissed off I couldn't put something like that together.
Scruffypup98 for president Don Imus for Vice President. Blaze

[tudi369]

i think this is a free country, and i think imus has appoligized enough. i think that if they take him off the air then they should stop all the nasty rap music and videos as well. and i will not buy any staples and procter and gamble products again.and will get my friends to do the same. and the only watched msnbc was to watch imus in the morning. thanks

[figuy30]

i agree that talk radio is sometimes very stupid but anyone who listens to it knows that. you want to be insulted? listen to rap music. you want double standard? what if there were an NAAWP? what if there were a phone book called WHITE PAGES for white business only? what if white male children were segregated for special education programs because they had fallen behind in school? nobody should demean & degrade anyone else simply because it's not the right thing to do, but it's not realistic to complain just because you "felt insulted". as far as those sponsers are concerned i would'nt use their products if they were given to me.

[me4prezz]

Again, it is not a matter of Freedom of Speech. It is an ethical issue. Just because you CAN say something, does not mean that you SHOULD say something.

Even if someone else says it, does not mean that you SHOULD.

Did people not take ethics in school or what?

[xdecidete]

Imus%u2026%u2026.Minus%u2026.. Whatever this guy name is, he still is an employee and if his employer wants to fire him, I say good! All I have been hearing for the last few days are %u201Cexcuse after excuse%u201D as to why he did it, how others said it first, (I have heard better excuses from my five year old kid). These are public radio airwaves, I am sure he can find a job at XM Satellite Radio or FoxNews. There will be no great loss to our society if this guy gets out of radio. Let%u2019s face it, for what he brings to the table any %u201CJoe six pack%u201D could do without any real training. I hope he gets fired. Calling kids names, what an idiot.

[soleman52]

I-Man

You might be done baby but I still like you

not because I am racist but just because i like You regardless.... Good Luck Bro...Keep those ya love in yer heart Forget the rest......

[jotaguro]

I find it amusing that people are stirred up enough about Imus's troubles that they have to post to defend him. How one can defend calling another person a "nappy headed ho", I will never understand.

I personally want CBS to fire Imus and I say it by my right of free speech.

[kaili3]

that is right.
free speech.
if people do not like him,turn the channel.
now this poor guy is jobless over this.
what about the black comedians making fun of 'white' people.
this is so a double standard here.

[msilva10]

I am sorry that Imus made those comments about those young ladies. But he is a good person and those two sponsors Staples and Microsoft of NBC should cast the first stone if they have not committed an injustice to the American people.

These two companies have wrong the American people. Bill Gates continues to request congress to pass H1B visas to allow cheap Indian labor into our country. He says he can not find HIGH TECH talent in America for his company. So Millions of US HIGH TECH Americans loose their jobs, so Mr. Gates can hire cheap Indian labor.

Mr. Gates is going to invest 2.5 billion dollars in cheap India infrastructure. What is wrong with investing in US, so Bill Gates can get US HIGH TECH resources?

But the US NASSA program has no problem finding HIGH TECH people because they are willing to pay a fair wage. Staple%u2019s is responsible for the loss of HIGH TECH jobs, because they outsource most of their IT work to India.

Imus, has a lot influence with the political arena, and he represents the middle class America in the political arena, and now that we are getting close to the 2008 Present Election, %u201CBIG MONEY%u201D is trying to capitalize on his error by using those young ladies and Imus as pawn and take Imus out of the media.

My prayers are with Imus and those beautiful young ladies who being exploited by really bad people.

Imus please help these girls and do not let these people self promote their hidden agendas.

[jkcsp]

Oh come on...What ever happend to free speach????
The man has every right to express himself and those of you that don't like it should not listen!!!! GROW UP PEOPLE You do have the ability to turn the little *** on the radio, don't you? It would be a real shame if Imus gets fired for FREEDOM OF SPEACH!!!! I for one will continue to listen and enjoy Imus (I have the ability to turn it off if I don't like what he has to say)

[kaili3]

the news people you mention are still on tv
because they have freedom of speech.
i was not a huge fan of imus,but hey,if someone didn't want to hear him,turn the channel.

[windpg]

While his comments were disagreeable it is highly hypocritical to be "shocked" or "saddened" since language worse than this has become common, particularly in the rap music genre, but in other media and even in general social discourse.Have you not listened to BET as of late?
Be honest. his comments are the result of and symptom of our cultural debasement, not the cause of it. Our media will now chastise the old white guy and we can all feel smugly self-righteous.