• Conrad Black to feds: "You got nothin'." [CP]
  

• Welcome back to CBS Radio, CEO Dan Mason. There are a couple of items in your inbox. Start with that Imus folder. [NYP]
  

• We bid farewell to Don Imus in song.
  

Glaring Omissions reproduces tips received from readers in the last week that weren't covered on Gawker, either by accident (it happens!) or by design (it happens more often).

From time to time the news cycle offers up an event of such import and complexity that it can only be comprehended through the medium of musical theater. Ben Greenman, the Rodgers & Hammerstein of the age (or, at least the Hammerstein), will lead you down the Great White Way to understanding. Shhh, the curtain's starting to rise!

In our unbridled pursuit of fame and of the validation of the establishment, we do a lot of things of which we are not particularly proud. Things like appearing on Fox's 2 a.m. shit-show "Red Eye," attending panels where Graydon Carter is a featured speaker, being in the same neighborhood as Julia Allison, walking by the Beatrice Inn, that sort of thing. As we watched the Don Imus drama unfold this week, though, we decided that there must be limits, even for us. No matter how desperate or attention-starved we may be, there is no excuse for condoning racism and sexism. All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do very little, or something like that. Now we must take a stand: We will never make a guest appearance on Mr. Imus' television show or his radio program. Pardon our brief sincerity, but we feel that strongly about this issue, and thought now would be exactly the right time to make this pledge.

• Forget Al Sharpton, it's the blogs that brought Imus down. That and, you know, the massive exit of advertisers. (David Carr's theory: was new nonstop news cycle.) [WSJ]
  

From the big man, CBS honcho Les Moonves himself:

For those of you unable to concentrate on your jobs, family, or the heartbreaking news that Angelina Jolie seems unable to love her lone biological child because you've been sick with worry about this Don Imus situation, relief: He's been shitcanned by CBS, and shitcanned good. Our east-coasted siblings at Gawker have smiling CBS Corp. despot Les Moonves' announcement of the firing, who is no doubt a little annoyed that sworn NBC enemy Jeff Zucker beat him to the kill yesterday; he hates being the guy to fire the second bullet at a public execution.

The new issue of Time (the one that offsets the Imus Imus Imus coverage with a big "Black people: Why don't they play baseball anymore?" package) is probably worth your while—there's a really good James Poniewozik thinkpiece on, uh, Imus—but you will particularly enjoy the Joel Stein profile of Adam Brody, especially if you're one of those people in their twenties and thirties who think Joel Stein is "a god." (Richard Stengel, you so have your finger on the pulse!)

• Bernie Goldberg: will bitch about CBS for food. [NYP]
  

We haven't exactly been eager to dive into the Don Imus controversy that has erupted since some ugly words regarding the Rutgers women's basketball team slipped from the dessicated radio host's slackened jaw. We can no longer avoid it, however, now that a reader has forwarded us an internal missive from reigning NBC Universal oligarch Jeff Zucker, explaining, with heavy Golden Boy heart, the thought process that led to the dismantling of Imus's MSNBC talk show and expulsion from the General Electric kingdom. It's not the kind of letter a chief executive ever wants to have to compose, but let's face it—these things happen, and not every every company-wide correspondence can begin with a horn-tooting intro like, "Please join us for an afternoon ice cream social in the lobby to celebrate Heroes landing at #1 in the 18-49 demo AGAIN, folks!" The e-mail, and NBC Universal's official statement, is after the jump:

The great and the good have all spoken on the Imus affair; what of the common man? How does he or she feel about the aging radio personality's unfortunate remarks? We sent The Assimilated Negro and Richard Blakeley to investigate.

Our pals inside MSNBC are saying that with the loss of advertisers, radio cadaver Don Imus actually won't have a show to return to after his two-week suspension for talking about nappy-headed hos. This sounds crazy to us—just like Paris Hilton after the sex tape, now he's more famous than ever! But radio, we suppose, is sort of a business too, and they do like having ads. And if you can't get Bigelow Tea to pony up cash, well. Anyway. Someone made the point to us last night that the real question is: Maybe he'll never see guests the likes of Maureen Dowd or whatever, but will racial flame-war mistalker Joe Biden go on Imus again? That seems like the true test of something or other. Can someone ask him? Great thanks!

• Can Don Imus maintain his moneymaking capabilities? 'Cause otherwise he's just some loudmouth hick in a hat. [NYT]
  

Prominent media figures are climbing over each other to offer their opinions on the Imus affair, but, until now, we had yet to hear from one of the most important voices of the age. It was worth the wait.

Aging radio personality Don Imus received a two week suspension yesterday and compounded the damage done by his "nappy hos" remark in an awesome appearance on Al Sharpton's radio program; Sharpton hammered him for the first 90 minutes and then Imus seemed to refer to blacks as "you people" and attempted to use the word "jive." "NewsHour" correspondent Gwen Ifill, who has waited nine years to exact her revenge against the man who once called her "the cleaning lady," gets her chance this morning in the Times and does so in exquisite fashion. We're of the opinion that there'll be a continued hemming and hawing over the whole thing for a few more days and then it will be forgotten, as it always is, because, you know, he may be a bigot, but an appearance on his show does help to sell your book, and, really, isn't that what matters? Still it's all been worth it, if only for this AP photo, which we're going to have framed.

The New York Times has been all up in this Don Imus racist-talk craziness, with David Carr's fully huffy article about the show and then Maria Newman's midday update today. The New York Times formerly advertised on Imus's show—the paper was one of five major sponsors. (Others are Newsday, Simon & Schuster, Random House, and the New York Stock Exchange.) According to a Times spokeswoman, the paper "does not currently advertise on Imus in the Morning. We have not for months and have no plans to do so." Smooth timing! This morning Times standards editor Craig Whitney felt compelled to send out a communiqu to the paper's reporters reminding them that they should consider, very carefully, whether or not to make a radio, TV, or "Internet" appearance that might bring shame upon the House of Sulzberger.

• Southampton Press, owned by entirely nutty Joseph Louchheim, begets East Hampton Press; East Hampton Star not thrilled. We say: If there are two places to read crime reports about dumb girls named Amy Kline who miss the last train back to the city and call the police, who then actually call and get them a bus back to town instead of telling them to sleep on the street, we're thrilled. [NYT]
  

Pity the indentured servant who tries to entertain radio host Don Imus' five-year-old son. Brooklynite Nichole Mallette, 24, was terminated from her job as the Imus family nanny after being found with a tiny pocket knife and cap gun during a vacation on Imus' New Mexico ranch. Despite insisting the cap gun was for Imus' son to "play cowboy" with during their stay, Mallette was questioned, fired, and escorted off the property in the middle of the night. Mallette is now suing for wrongful termination after "Imus later announced on his program that he had been forced to 'disarm' his nanny, whom he labeled as dangerous and a 'terrorist.'" We, however, are thanking God we have Don Imus to protect us and take down the terrorists, one nanny at a time.
Nanny Sues Imus Over Ranch Wrangle [TSG]