Amid the screaming and righteous indignation of the Don Imus incident, communications crisis managers were learning their own lesson. And it wasn’t that TV networks, hit in the pocketbook, can get very moral (we already knew that); it was that speed really does kill.
Consider how long it took Dan Rather to be drummed off the air a mere two years ago — 20 months. Twenty months from his infamous “60 Minutes” report to the time he walked out the door at CBS. Know how long it took Imus to get the boot after his dumb remark? Eight days.
