suboptimal information

Don Imus

Someone attempting to spur an ethics debate about ethnic slurs and the measure of reasonable versus unreasonable response to their use – accepted or not – by participating audience and third parties after the fact seemed to me to have missed a key factor.  Firing someone in Don Imus’ position is completely unrelated to how offensive a particular comment was, the audience that was or was not offended by it, the outside parties that heard about it and took offense, or even cultural ambiguities that may surround a given slur that might make it inoffensive language when used in context between cooperating social groups.  Firing is a business decision.

The companies that fired Imus did so because it was no longer within their business interests to keep him.  He offended the business interests of his sponsors, destroying his commercial utility to his employers.  Someone you pay to help you earn income stops earning that income, what do you do?  You stop paying them.

If someone makes an offensive remark using an ethnic slur, but it is within the business model that is the basis of their employment, it may be perfectly reasonable to continue to employ them.  Propogandists, rap lyricists, comedy writers – sometimes they are supposed to venture into these topics.  Imus wasn’t, and now he’s unemployed.