Prometheus 6

Here's whole show and the whole transcript.

MR. RUSSERT: But he also would say he’s equal opportunity, and I got, of—one who went on a lot on “Imus,” poked fun after for being Irish, for being Catholic and a whole lot of other—for being “husky,” as my mom would say.

But Gwen Ifill, yours truly, most of the major people at NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, CNN, PBS, New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, New Yorker, and yet, you, you write this: “Why do my journalistic colleagues appear on Mr. Imus’ program? That’s for them to defend, and others to argue about. I certainly don’t know any black journalists who will.”

MS. GWEN IFILL: You know, it’s interesting to me. This has been an interesting week. The people who have spoken, people who have issued statements, the pop—the people who haven’t. There’s been radio silence from a lot of people who’ve done this program who could’ve spoken up and said, “I find this offensive” or “I didn’t know.” These people didn’t speak up.

Tim, we didn’t hear that much from you.

David, we didn’t hear from you.

What was missing in this debate was someone saying, “You know, I understand that this is offensive.” You know, I have a seven-year-old goddaughter. Yesterday, she went out shopping with her mom for high-top basketball shoes so she can play basketball. The offense, the slur that Imus directed at me happened more than 10 years ago. I like to think in 10 years from now that Asia isn’t going to be deciding that she wants to get recruited for the college basketball team or be a tennis pro or go to medical school and that she’s still vulnerable to those kinds of casual slurs and insults that I got 10 years ago, and that people will say, “I didn’t know,” or people will say, “I wasn’t listening.” A lot of people did know, and a lot of people were listening, and they just decided it was OK. They decided this culture of meanness was fine until they got caught. My concern about Mr. Imus and a lot of people and, and a lot of the debate in the society is not that people are sorry that they say these things. They’re sorry that someone catches them.

When Don Imus said this about me when I worked here at NBC, when I found out about it, his producer called and said, “Don wants to apologize.” Well, now he says he never said it. What was he apologizing for? He was apologizing for getting caught, not apologizing for having said it in the first place. And that, to me, is the debate that we need to have. David’s right, about the culture of meanness, about the culture of racial complaint, about the internal culture in our community, about the way we talk to one another. But this week, just this week, it was finally saying “Enough.”

MR. RUSSERT: There were passionate, emotional debates within, within NBC, as you, I’m sure...

MS. IFILL: I know.

MR. RUSSERT: ...you were aware of that. And yet, I thought it was important and helpful because it was civil as people worked their way through it. I don’t think anyone felt that what Don said was defensible, including himself. I mean, I feel profoundly sad for the team. They went to the pinnacle of the basketball, into the finals, and this is what they had to talk about all week.

I also feel sadness for Don Imus and his wife and his family. I think he said a terrible thing. I think he regrets it. She’s a former college athlete. They’ve done a lot of good things for a lot of good people. And I think the discussion was not whether or not he said something terrible or offensive, but what should be the magnitude of his punishment, which I think is a fair discussion to have.

MS. IFILL: I don’t know Don Imus personally. I’m not going to say—I’m not going to say I wish bad things on him and his family or that he’s always done bad things. I’m saying that this—we were given a national moment, a moment to decide what we were going to discuss and what was going to be acceptable, and that if that national moment had concluded without real punishment, without real punishment that people could, could grasp within the corporations and within the media corporations and around tables like this, then it would’ve been a lost opportunity.

MR. ROBINSON: You know, there was one, one word that you used earlier that I think is important in this discussion, you used the word “casual.” And, you know, in discussions this week, people have said, and I, and I also do not know Don Imus and certainly don’t know what’s in his heart, but people have said, you know, “Don Imus is not a racist, he doesn’t—he doesn’t hate black people.” And I’ve tried to, to, to make the point that you don’t have to wear a sheet to be a racist. You don’t have to burn crosses to be racist. You don’t have to consciously think, “In, in my heart, I hate black people.” If you think black people are different or lesser or open to ridicule or, or some sort of quote “other,” other than yourself then, you know, I think that qualifies. So maybe it’s an educational moment, as well...(unintelligible).

MS. IFILL: The fact that you’re even capable of summoning those words out of your mouth alone—in front of an open microphone, let alone in conversations with friends, I don’t know anybody who could do that.....

MS. IFILL: Newsweek, which put all of its journalists regularly on Imus and had no problem with that and was eerily quiet all week until after MSNBC pulled the plug, and then put out a statement saying, “Oh, we’re not going to put our journalists on Imus any more.” People did not cover themselves with glory in this. They waited until the heat was off and then said, “Ah, this is a terrible thing.” I’m talking about people in our business and politics as well. I mean, Harold Ford Jr., who thought he was saving his Senate campaign by appearing on Imus, and it didn’t work in the end, stayed very, very quiet and didn’t return a whole lot of phone calls this week until after the shoes began to drop. And then he put out a statement saying, “Well maybe what he did wasn’t so good.”

MR. RUSSERT: But if he’s inducted in the hall of fame, he’s on the cover of Time and Newsweek in the late ‘90s when people were very aware of the content of the show. Is it because times have changed?

MS. IFILL: It’s because things happen. And sometimes things just bubble to the surface. I sometimes think about what he said about me and think, “Eh, not a big deal.” But you know what, it was supposed to come around till now and be part of a larger argument, and that’s what this has tapped into. People just have this core of pain in them that this tapped right into. The mail I got was astonishing.