Rosie’s 'right' to be an idiot on the air

But here is the funny thing about Rosie.  While I personally find her on-air antics disgraceful, disgusting and unbelievably insensitive, as a journalist I feel some responsibility to challenge other broadcasters who call for her firing.  My sense is that we have some responsibility to each other.  It is a responsibility to challenge, criticize and question the on-air punditry of our colleagues while protecting their right to say extremely controversial things on the air. 

For some, this may sound like a contradiction, but if you truly believe in the Constitution and the right of free speech, the argument makes sense.  Yes, with the right of free speech comes a whole set of responsibilities (which obviously Rosie ignores) but it is not my place or the place of any broadcaster to demand a resignation.  Bill O’Reilly has implied that he believes Rosie must go for her on-air rants.  Further, my good friend and MSNBC colleague Joe Scarborough is more direct about Rosie going.  In fact, the two of us debated this issue on April 2^’s “Scarborough Country.”  I respect Joe’s opinion, but I think he is wrong on this. 

As for O’Reilly, he is being intellectually dishonest and unlike Joe Scarborough (who said on his show he would call for the firing of any broadcaster he felt went as far over the line as Rosie has), is ideologically and politically motivated in his blasting of Rosie O’Donnell.  O’Reilly goes crazy over Rosie’s comments, but gives a pass to the Ann Coulter’s of the world who say things at least as offensive as what Rosie says.  When Ann Coulter said that 9/11 widows were somehow happy to have lost their husbands because now they can become rich and famous, O’Reilly not only didn’t call for newspapers to drop Coulter’s column or publishers to stop putting out her books or people to boycott her, he did the opposite.  He had Coulter on his program, he coddled her, he joked with her and he never seriously challenged her.  He never exposed the vile and unbelievably distasteful things she said about women who lost their husbands and whose children are now without fathers.  O’Reilly never touched it.  Why?  Because Ann Coulter and Bill O’Reilly are ideologically not that far apart and both can be extremely obnoxious in the process. 

Yet, I would defend and protect their right and the right of any fellow broadcaster to say what they want on the air.  And if I disagree or think they are being irresponsible, it is my job to challenge and question them.  It is the job of their employer to decide their professional fate.  Once we abandon this approach, the slope gets very slippery.  It’s a slope I’m not comfortable being on and one that no broadcaster—regardless of his or her politics or opinions—should trifle with, even in the case of Rosie O’Donnell.

Write to Steve Adubato at . 

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