â€œThis corporation has zero tolerance for racial intolerance. Mr. DePetro has 72 hours to think about it,â€ said Jason Wolfe, vice president of programming at WRKO (680) and WEEI-AM (850).

since when is homosexuality a RACE?

Depetro is a dingus and a fool, and he's not a shock-jock wanna be he's a Howie Carr wannabe...

i'm glad they suspended him, because Fag is a slur that shouldn't be thrown around in the media to name call any more than i'd want to be called a Harp or a Fatass. (even though I proudly claim to be both).

depetro is an idiot but it would be nice if his radiostation could clearly define the reason why he is suspended. not for a racial slur... but a slur nonetheless.

First Amendment Scholars, Apparently

By Citizen Charles Foster Kane... on Wed, 07/19/2006 - 12:39pm.

I suppose it never occurred to the geniuses at Hub Politics that WRKO didn't cave in to public pressure but that Entercom might actually have some standards and practices they expect their on air talent (and I use that loosely) to follow. Then again Gerry Callahan seems to go pretty much unchecked so I may be wrong...

I just hope Aaron Margolis calls someone a fag at work in front of a group of people so he can learn how the First Amendment actually works.

What?

By Dave on Wed, 07/19/2006 - 2:15pm.

To suspend someone for a "racial slur" for impugning the manhood of an incompetent, entrenched bureaucrat who basically said his wife wouldn't let him resign. WRKO must be run by a bunch of cowards. More than once Howie Carr has referred to Whitey Bulger as "half a fag", and I don't think he's ever gotten in trouble. I guess it all depends on how much revenue you bring to the station.

Wolfe was program director at WEEI in 2003 when co-hosts John Dennis and Gerry Callahan were suspended for two weeks for comparing an escaped gorilla to an inner-city Metco student.

So both papers had to resurrect this nugget. I was listening when Dennis made the comment back then, and he apologized right away when someone must have pointed out how it might be misinterpreted as a slur. The escaped gorilla was found at a bus stop, and in talking about the item he tried to make a dumb joke based on the bus stop/Metco connection, not a gorilla/black connection. If you'd been listening you'd know this to be true, but immediately taking it back wasn't good enough for the people in the racism industry, no. They either wanted some conservative scalps, or they wanted to make them grovel, just like is probably going to happen with Depetro.

I Get It Now

By Citizen Charles Foster Kane... on Wed, 07/19/2006 - 6:44pm.

Well that clears it all up. Because any bus stop must be a Metco bus stop. What a great joke! Poor Dennis and Callahan, victims of the "racism industry", not their own stupidity. I thought conservatives were all about taking responsibility for personal actions but, as usual, all they can think of is their own victimhood. What a pathetic display of rationalization--Howie Carr says it so it must be okay.

Can you read?

By Dave on Wed, 07/19/2006 - 8:30pm.

a. I said it was a dumb joke, b. Dennis took responsibility by proactively pointing out that he didn't intend what people like you were inevitably going to claim he meant based on second-hand reports of out-of-context quotes and c. I didn't rationalize Howie Carr; I pointed out the double standard.

Yes, I am perfectly capable

By Citizen Charles Foster Kane... on Wed, 07/19/2006 - 9:46pm.

Yes, I am perfectly capable of reading and I was listening the day they made their "joke" and I've read the transcript of what Dennis and Callahan said seveal times. Whatever Dennis's intentions, he said what he said. Trying to explain it away doesn't change a thing and singling out the "racism industry" certainly belies your own position on such issues. You make Dennis and Callahan out as the victims, not the responsible parties. In your world, if there were no "racism industry", no one would have said a word about the "dumb joke" they made.

So let's get this clear--you believe it is okay for Howie Carr to call people fags and believe that DePetro should be allowed to call people fags as well without punishment. That's not a double standard, that's a rationalization.

Junk radio events are not news

By Ron Newman on Wed, 07/19/2006 - 2:21pm.

Last night around 10:30 pm, I heard (on LiveJournal) about a major water main break in Boston, so I went to both the Globe and Herald web sites to find out more. Neither site had anything about it, but both somehow found the time and space to cover this non-story.

WRKO blabmeister suspended over Big Dig comments

Comments

racial?