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Imus Apologizes for “Ho’s” Comment

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NABJ Says It Still Wants Radio Host Out by Monday

Don Imus, the radio host who for years has withstood criticism for offensive comments made on his show, apologized on Friday for describing student athletes of Rutgers Universityâ??s womenâ??s basketball team as “nappy- headed hoâ??s.”

Simultaneously, the National Association of Black Journalists was calling for Imus’ firing, saying “all journalists of all colors” should boycott his program until he apologizes for his latest outrage. NABJ prepared the statement before it knew of Imus’ apology.

 

 

 

But late Friday, NABJ said the apology was insufficient and called “for the immediate removal of Imus and his WFAN producer, Bernard McGuirk â?? who referred to the players as ‘jigaboos and wannabees’ â?? by Monday morning.”

The Imus Web page at MSNBC lists Monday morning’s guests as NBC’s Tim Russert, former Boston Globe columnist Tom Oliphant and Evan Thomas of Newsweek.

“The association also questions if sponsors of his show â?? which include the New York Stock Exchange, The New York Times, Simon & Schuster, Random House and Newsday â?? will want to continue to be associated with the program,” the NABJ statement said.

On Friday’s “Imus in the Morning,” which originates at WFAN in New York, Imus said: “Want to take a moment to apologize for an insensitive and ill-conceived remark we made the other morning regarding the Rutgers women’s basketball team.

“It was completely inappropriate, and we can understand why people were offended. Our characterization was thoughtless and stupid, and we are sorry.”

MSNBC distanced itself from the comments.

“While simulcast by MSNBC, ‘Imus in the Morning’ is not a production of the cable network and is produced by WFAN Radio. As Imus makes clear every day, his views are not those of MSNBC. We regret that his remarks were aired on MSNBC and apologize for these offensive comments,” spokesman Jeremy Gaines said.

However, Philip Nobile, a New York writer who has called attention to offensive Imus comments for years, told Journal-isms, “I heard the so-called apology this morning. The words were right but Imus was obviously insincere.

“The statement was read without affect, to the smallest audience at 6am, and never repeated. McGuirk said nothing.”

Imus uttered his epithet on his April 4 show after McGuirk called the team “hard-core ho’s.”

Imus and McGuirk went on to call the black members of the team â??jigaboos and wannabees.â??

According to the MediaMatters Web site, “McGuirk referred to the NCAA women’s basketball championship game between Rutgers and Tennessee as a ‘Spike Lee thing,’ adding, ‘The Jigaboos vs. The Wannabees — that movie that he had.’ McGuirk was presumably referring to Lee’s 1988 film, ‘School Daze’.”

“Has he lost his mind?” asked NABJ President Bryan Monroe, vice president and editorial director for Ebony and Jet magazines in Chicago, in the NABJ statement. “Those comments were beyond offensive. Imus needs to be fired. Today.”

After the apology, Monroe said of Imus, “What he said has deeply hurt too many people â?? black and white, male and female, His so-called apology comes two days after the fact, and it is too little, too late.”

The presidents of the NCAA and Rutgers University also condemned Imus’ remarks, as did C. Vivian Stringer, Rutgers women’s basketball head coach.

“Without a doubt, this past season was my most rewarding in 36 years of coaching,” she said. “To serve as a joke of Mr. Imus in such an insensitive manner creates a wedge and makes light of the efforts of these classy individuals, both as women and as women of color.”

While it might not originate on MSNBC, Imus’ show is a success for the cable channel.

“Ratings for most morning news programs have been declining, although MSNBC has demonstrated strong gains for its simulcast of Don Imus’s morning radio show,” Bill Carter wrote Thursday in the New York Times, reporting that CNN was replacing its morning anchor team of Soledad O’Brien and Miles O’Brien.

Imus has enjoyed support from media and political heavyweights despite criticism over comments by Imus and his sidekicks.

On March 6, MediaMatters reports, McGuirk said that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton was “trying to sound black in front of a black audience” when she gave a speech on March 4 in Selma, Ala., to commemorate the 1965 ‘Bloody Sunday’ civil rights march.

McGuirk added that Clinton “will have cornrows and gold teeth before this fight” with Sen. Barack Obama is over. Earlier in the program, in reference to Clinton’s speech, McGuirk had said, “Bitch is gonna be wearing cornrows.” McGuirk also said that Clinton will be “giving Crips signs during speeches,” the Web site reported, in a reference to the Los Angeles-based street gang.

Gaines said MSNBC’s statement on the comments about the Rutgers team also applied to those about Clinton.

In the previous decade, when PBS’ Gwen Ifill was a member of the New York Times’ Washington Bureau, Imus said of her: “Isn’t The Times wonderful? It lets the cleaning lady cover the White House,” the late Lars-Eric Nelson reported in 1998 in the New York Daily News.

In the same column, Nelson reported that Imus described Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz as a “boner-nosed, beanie-wearing Jew boy.”

In 2000, Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page, appearing on Imus’ show, had Imus take a pledge to refrain from further racist comments. But he said he has not been invited back since.

From an Aug. 17, 2001, transcript of “All Things Considered” on National Public Radio:

BROOKE GLADSTONE: “Back in May of last year, something remarkable happened on ‘Imus in the Morning.’ Clarence Page, the Washington columnist for the Chicago Tribune and a regular guest on the classy part of the show, asked Imus to take a pledge.”

(Soundbite of programming)

“Page: Are you raising your hand?

“IMUS: I have it up.

“PAGE: OK. Number one. I, Don Imus…

“IMUS: I, Don Imus…

“PAGE: . . . do solemnly swear . . .

“IMUS: . . . do solemnly swear . . .

“PAGE: . . . that I will promise to cease all simian references to black athletes. . .

“IMUS: . . . that I will promise to cease all simian references to black athletes. . .

“PAGE: . . . abandon all references to non-criminal blacks as thugs, pimps, muggers and Colt 45 drinkers.

“IMUS: I promise to do that.

“PAGE: Very good. How about an end to Amos and Andy cuts, comparison of New York City to Mogadishu and all parodies of black voices unless they are done by a black person, ’cause you’re really not very good at it.

“IMUS: I think Bernard should be doing this. He should have his hand up.

“PAGE: Bernard, where are you?

“GLADSTONE: The pledge was inevitably and immediately broken. But for Page, that wasn’t the point. The point was to make his position clear. He liked being on the serious part of ‘Imus in the Morning,’ but he didn’t want his presence to imply endorsement of the outrages committed in the other part.

“PAGE: I personally feel that I, and other pundits, should not go on if we have serious objections to some of the show’s material, unless Don does give us the opportunity to address those concerns, as he did with me. Now why I haven’t been invited on the show since, I don’t know. I haven’t troubled myself to call and ask.”

Page said Friday he still had not been invited back and that “it still aggravates me that Bernard in particular is still as callous as he is. I don’t think he’s a bad guy, same thing with Don.” But Page said it aggravated him when criticism of Imus is attributed to “political correctness. It’s just plain old good manners,” Page told Journal-isms.

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Houston Host Says He’s Sorry for Indian Remarks

A Houston councilman who hosts a radio talk show has apologized for saying American Indians don’t deserve the federal assistance that they’re getting because they “were whipped in a war.

“We conquered them,” Michael Berry said. â??That’s history. Hello?”

The Associated Press reported Wednesday, “The March 27 remarks on the Michael Berry Show â?? archived online and available for anyone to hear â?? have sent shock waves through Indian Country. They’ve been a hot topic on Indianz.com and on another Houston radio show â?? one about Indian culture.”

However, AP did not report the statements nationally until the apology.

“The original story,” written from Cheyenne, Wyo., by Mead Gruver, “ran only on our WST wire that goes to 13 states,” Managing Editor Mike Silverman told Journal-isms on Friday.

“Apparently the initial remarks on March 27 did not attract much notice in the media in Houston, and AP was unaware of them until this week when they began resonating and led to the story from Cheyenne. Our national desk editors felt that story needed some additional reporting and were in the process of getting that when the guy issued his apology and THAT became the obvious angle.”

Berry said Thursday that he posted the apology on his station’s Web site the night before “not because I offended people, but because I was wrong,” according to the AP story by Joe Stinebaker.

“My facts were wrong, and the basis of my facts was wrong,” he said.

“Berry made the remarks while speaking against a proposal in the Texas Legislature for the state to apologize for slavery,” the story said.

“‘If you’re against apologizing for slavery, then you’ve got to be against giving welfare to the American Indians because of the fact that 200 years ago they were whipped in a war,’ he said.

“‘Why don’t we go hand the Germans a few million dollars, and the Italians, and the Japanese? OK, so we did rebuild their country. We don’t continue to give them aid because they sit around whining about a war from 200 years ago. Are you kidding me? Seriously.’

“Berry said Thursday that among the ‘several hundred’ e-mails he had received about his remarks were several that pointed out ‘intellectually and politely’ that American Indians did not receive a disproportionate share of federal assistance and were not singled out for scholarships and other federal programs.”

Berry said in his apology, “Iâ??ll have an American Indian expert guest on the show within the next week to discuss American Indians and answer questions on the matter. If I had misconceptions, perhaps others do, too.”

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Pioneering Coach Eddie Robinson Gets His Props

Legendary Grambling State University Coach Eddie Robinson got his props from many newspapers on Thursday, with his death late Tuesday at age 88 garnering front-page coverage in many, especially in the South, though not so much in the West.

 

 

As ESPN explained, in announcing programming about Robinson that it aired Thursday and Friday, Robinson, “in 55 seasons at Grambling State University in Louisiana, became the first college football coach to win more than 400 football games, more than any other college coach in history. The longtime Grambling coach transformed a small college team into a football power that sent hundreds of players to the NFL. Robinson, for decades the most recognizable black football coach in the country, set a standard for victories with 408.”

Leading the way in newspaper coverage, at least in the prominence given the story, were those in Robinson’s home state of Louisiana, where the Alexandria Town Talk placed the news over the paper’s nameplate, with the words “Eddie Robinson: 1919-2007” and “Grambling Legend Dies.”

“A Legend. A Life. A Legacy,” headlined the Daily Advertiser in Lafayette, La. “Farewell, Coach Rob,” proclaimed the Shreveport Times, which had Robinson as its lead story.

But even away from Louisiana, according to front pages posted on the Newseum’s Web site, newspapers tried to match prose with legend.

“Eddie Robinson Was Born a Grambling Man,” the Tampa (Fla.) Tribune said in a headline stripped across the bottom of the front page, above a staff-written story that alerted readers to a column inside by Joe Henderson. “If you have children, make them listen to you today. Tell them why the great Eddie Robinson matters to their life. They need to know. It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white because the change wrought by Eddie Robinson washed over us all,” Henderson began.

Across the bay, the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times had a front-page piece by Rick Stroud that focused on Doug Williams, the man Robinson mentored who became a Super Bowl MVP.

 

The Star-Ledger in Newark, N.J., brought back its retired columnist Jerry Izenberg for a front-page piece on the iconic coach that ran over four columns: “The Coach Was the Epitome of What’s Best in America.”

The Miami Herald, too, displayed a front-page column on the coach. “Dignified and accomplished, Eddie Robinson persevered through all manner of hardship and racial prejudice, conquering everything, winning a record number of football games and an equal measure of broad, deep respect,” wrote Greg Cote.

“He Was Grambling,” the Philadelphia Daily News declared in one of the boxes over the tabloid’s nameplate. For added effect, the staff-written Robinson story at the bottom of the Savannah (Ga.) Morning News front page was printed in white type with a black background.

Newspapers in cities where historically black colleges educated some of the thousands of student-athletes who interacted with Robinson — from the Nashville Tennessean to the Baltimore Sun to the Savannah Morning News — reported stories based on those interactions.

Most newspapers ran an Associated Press story by Mary Foster. A few used a drawing of the coach, such as the Delta (Miss.) Democrat-Times, which featured it to the right of its nameplate and the words, “Remembering Eddie Robinson: Impact of a Man’s Life.”

The Baltimore Sun front page declared, “The Loss of a Legend,” and keyed to a column inside by David Steele.

Among large papers, the New York Times, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Post all featured Robinson prominently, with the conservative Washington Times elevating Robinson to the top of the page, giving the story more prominence than the rival Post.

The New York Daily News ran four pages on Robinson, including a back page, “until later editions when we switched to the Mets with a big tease across the top of the back page,” said News Sports Editor Leon Carter.

Inside the New York Times, William Rhoden, author of last year’s “Forty Million Dollar Slaves. The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of the Black Athlete,” wrote of the coach in historic and political terms:

“Robinson’s passing on Tuesday marks the end of an era,” Rhoden said.

“At the same time, Robinson’s legacy should challenge a generation of young coaches at historically black colleges and universities to revitalize their mission, to define a new role and give renewed purpose to the institution that Robinson represented with such vigor.”

Jean-Jacques Taylor, writing in the Dallas Morning News, also related Robinson’s life to the present:

“Coach Rob, who began his career in the segregated South, never had an opportunity to face peers like Bear Bryant or Woody Hayes or Joe Paterno with his best teams,” he said. “The times wouldn’t let it happen. And once colleges integrated and coaches like Bryant and Darrell Royal started giving scholarships to black players, Grambling no longer had the talent level to compete against Division I powers, though he would play anyone anywhere.

“Still, his success should’ve paved the way for more black head coaches in Division I football.

“It didn’t.”

The Dallas paper also had a first-person piece about playing under Robinson, written by one of its own graphic artists, Dameon Runnels, who played football at Grambling State from 1994 to 1998. “The funny thing about playing for Coach Rob is that in trying to live up to his expectations, eventually you begin to raise your own,” Runnels wrote, describing how he goaded the team into winning against Alcorn State.

ESPN scheduled a Thursday airing on ESPNU of Robinson’s 400th win, Grambling’s victory over Mississippi Valley State in 1995, followed by a special on Robinson, with both repeated on Friday on ESPN Classic.

A spokeswoman for Black Entertainment Television said she knew of no programming about Robinson.

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Edwards Drops Out of Fox-Black Caucus Debate

“Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards on Friday pulled out of a second debate co-hosted by Fox News Channel, saying the cable network has a conservative slant,” Mike Baker reported Friday for the Associated Press.

“The Edwards campaign said it will not attend the September 23 debate in Detroit hosted by Fox News and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, but officials added that Edwards is ‘looking forward’ to a different debate hosted by the institute and CNN in South Carolina in January 2008.

“‘We believe there’s just no reason for Democrats to give Fox a platform to advance the right-wing agenda while pretending they’re objective,’ said Jonathan Prince, Edwards’ deputy campaign manager.”

Last week, Jesse Jackson joined the group Color of Change in opposing the caucus’ plans to partner with Fox.

“Why would presidential candidates, or an organization that is supposed to advocate for Black Americans, ever give a stamp of legitimacy to a network that continually marginalizes Black leaders and the Black community?” Jackson asked.

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Geraldo, Bill O’Reilly in TV Shouting Match

“Bill O’Reilly and Geraldo Rivera said Friday there were no hard feelings after they engaged in a shouting match unusual even for a cable opinion program where the volume is frequently set to loud,” the Associated Press reported on Friday.

“No chairs flew and no noses were broken. But the finger-pointing verbal duel over illegal immigration on Fox News Channel’s ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ Thursday night became a water-cooler topic the next day.

“. . . The two men were discussing the case of Alfredo Ramos, a man charged with manslaughter and suspected of being drunk when his car crashed into another in Virginia Beach last Friday. Two teen-aged girls were killed. Ramos, a Mexican who has been in the United States seven years, is allegedly in the country illegally.

“‘He doesn’t have a right to be in this country,’ O’Reilly said. He said he wanted immigration laws enforced while Rivera favored ‘open-border anarchy.’

“Rivera said O’Reilly shouldn’t be turning a drunken driving case into an illegal immigration issue.

“‘Don’t obscure a tragedy to make a cheap political point,’ Rivera told him.

“Rivera told the AP he has a particular sensitivity to the issue. His father, who came to New York from Puerto Rico in 1940, used to watch the news and pray that people who committed a crime weren’t Puerto Rican, he said.”

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