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Parallels....with different outcomes

Interesting parallels between the response to Alan Jones' racist comments and incitement to violence here in Australia - most likely nil! - and that to a radio broadcaster, Don Imus, in the USA. Like Jones, Imus has "form" for previous outrageous statements.

The response, and outcome, in the US has been quite different, as this piece in the NY Times clearly shows. One might not have thought the standards in America would, certainly on this occasion, be far higher than those in Australia.

"NBC News dropped Don Imus yesterday, canceling his talk show on its MSNBC cable news channel a week after he made a racially disparaging remark about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

The move came after several days of widening calls for Mr. Imus to lose his show both on MSNBC, which simulcasts the “Imus in the Morning” show, and CBS Radio, which originates the show.

CBS Radio, which is the main employer of Mr. Imus, said in a statement last night that it would stick by the two-week suspension of the show that it and NBC News announced earlier; the suspension begins Monday.

But CBS said it would, in the interim, “continue to speak with all concerned parties and monitor the situation closely.”

The demands that Mr. Imus’s show be canceled have grown in intensity every day since last Wednesday when he made the comments, in which he labeled the women “nappy-headed hos.”

Numerous advertisers said yesterday that they would refuse to sponsor the show in the future. Among the advertisers were General Motors, American Express, Sprint Nextel, GlaxoSmithKline, TD Ameritrade and Ditech.com."

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