Don Imus Back on Radio, TV, Says Firing Justified

Shock Jock Don Imus returned to the airwaves Monday, this time with a syndicated radio show on WABC in New York, saying that he probably should have been fired by CBS in April for racially charged remarks he made about the Rutgers women’s-basketball team.

In an interview with Barbara Walters for her 10 Most Fascinating People ABC TV special Dec. 6, Imus said his addition of African-American staffers to the show was not made out of guilt, but as an effort and opportunity to diversify the cast.

Of his firing, he said: "I think that what happened is probably what should have happened," ABC reported Monday.

Asked if he was going to be a kinder, gentler Imus, he said by way of an answer that, in his opinion: "Vice President Cheney is still a war criminal and [Sen.] Hillary Clinton [D-N.Y.] is still Satan."

Imus also returned to TV with a morning simulcast (and evening repeat airing in HD) on cable channel RFD-TV -- his CBS show had been simulcast on MSNBC.

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.