BY DAN
KENNEDY
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See the World Through My Daughter's Eyes (Rodale, October 2003),
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here.
Tuesday, October 07, 2003
Peter Meade, class act.
Apparently it took an old pro from a different, better era of talk
radio finally to knock some sense into the management at WEEI Radio
(AM 850).
Both the Globe
and the Herald
report today that the station suspended John Dennis and Gerry
Callahan for two weeks without pay on the same day that Peter Meade,
the executive vice-president of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of
Massachusetts, was yanking $27,000 worth of advertising off the
air.
If you've just tuned in, this all
arose last week, when the morning-drive-time hosts yukked it up over
Little Joe, the gorilla who escaped from the Franklin Park
Zoo.
Observing that Joe had hung out for
a while at a bus stop, Dennis referred to him as "a Metco gorilla";
Callahan chimed in that he was "heading out to Lexington."
Though both papers mention Meade's
action, neither points out that Meade was a talk-show host at WBZ
Radio (AM 1030) during the 1980s. (He continues to do political
analysis for the station from time to time.)
A moderate liberal, Meade hosted a
show that directly preceded conservative David Brudnoy's. More often
than not, they would kick issues around together during the
crossover. It was a model of enlightened, civil talk radio of the
sort that's almost impossible to find these days.
As for Dennis and Callahan, two
weeks sounds about right -- provided the station is serious about
changing its gay-bashing, misogynistic, and (in at least this one
instance) racist tone.
Then again, we're living in an era
when the likes of Michael Savage trash gays and lesbians on the air,
and when even a reasonably intelligent host like Jay Severin refers
to illegal Latino immigrants as "wetbacks" and Muslims as
"towelheads."
No doubt that Dennis and Callahan
crossed way, way over the line. But the line itself needs some
heavy-duty recalibrating.
posted at 11:12 AM |
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MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
