Tangled Web/Imus

Dom Imus reached a settlement today in his wrongful termination dispute with C.B.S. Drudge is saying the figure was $20 million.

By sheer coincidence, Kia Vaughn, the center on the Rutgers Women’s basketball team filed a libel, slander and defamation suit against Imus today as well. The suit claims that Imus, on the infamous April 4 broadcast, used terms that were debasing, demeaning, humiliating and denigrating.

The lawsuit also names MSNBC, NBC Universal, CBS Radio, CBS Corporation, Viacom Inc, Westwood One Radio and Imus producer Bernard McGuirk. This is from ABC News.

Of the networks that aired “Imus in the Morning” the lawsuit alleges that they “wrongfully, intentionally, willfully … created, tolerated, and maintained an atmosphere in which the making of outrageous statements and comments was acceptable, encouraged, and/or rewarded for many years prior to this occurrence and/or overtly encouraged the statements made.”

That is pretty much the same case that Imus was making for wrongful termination at C.B.S. So, today’s settlement bodes well for Vaughn.

Here is what would happen in a semi-perfect world; Imus would take the $20 million and something out of his own pocket, contact all of the Rutgers players and coaches and offer it as damages. Then, the Rutgers players/coaches would say, “sounds fair to us”.

It’s not a semi-perfect world though so, next we can expect to see a string of lawsuits from every player and coach.

Imus is not in a position to resolve all of this on his own, in fact, he has upped the ante by successfully going after CBS.

CBS, MSNBC, Viacom, Westwood, Imus and McGuirk would be well served if they could agree to settle with Vaughan in a timely manner and proceed to do the same with all of the players/coaches. That would be a tall order but be worth it from a P.R. standpoint. I would not think that Imus and co. could be eager to see any of these cases go before a jury.

It is even possible that Imus could slide by somewhat financially unscathed when all is said and done. The corporations he is in bed with have deep pockets and reputations to uphold. In the end, he will try to keep his “renegade” stature and be able to say that he increased public discourse. Along those lines and also from the ABC News piece…

Vaughn’s lawyer says that some of the money from any damages awarded in the lawsuit would be used to create a scholarship program to study the effects of bigoted and misogynistic speech on society.