Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

Comments

  1. Can Howie Carr get out of his contract at WRKO?
    Carr must be frothing at the mouth to get to WTKK and leave Entercom’s disaster called WRKO.

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    p>Bet Severin is wondering if they can bring an ISDN phone line in to  McLean’s Psych Ward.. But it is so hard to talk when you are shot up with Thorozine.

  2. the media’s paying attention?

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    p>I actually saw a segment on the news today focusing on the horrible, horrible racism on the radio re: swine flu… the whacko radio hosts actually inferring that this could be a terrorist attack. I’m sorry, but these are public airwaves. We can’t have dog whistling pushing people to violence. Such things need to be banned — they say “fuck” and they’re fined thousands….. but I guess it’s perfectly okay to warn the fringe-right masses that the terrorists are coming to kill them via implanting illegal aliens with swine flu. Yeah, that’s not inciting to violence…

    • Typhoid Mary got locked up. Anyone coming across any border into any country is a clear and present danger. What is it that you don’t get?

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      p>I don’t even know who this guy is—did he use the N word? What was his egregious act? Someone suggested what he said, was no different than what he says everyday. Sounds like an abridgement of the first amendment unless he was screaming fire in a movie theatre and I saw nothing in the news about this. Is he being charged criminally as well?

      • He can monger hate all he wants — but he doesn’t have the right to do it using someone else’s radio equipment.

      • “Sounds like an abridgment of the first amendment…?”  If he were being charged, that would be an abridgment… he doesn’t have first amendment rights to speak on a radio station he doesn’t own.  Even if he were censored by the government, the aggrieved party would be the owners, not him.  He’s an employee.

  3. OK, I am just going to say this once, and I am not going to engage on it (for one thing, it’s Saturday, and I think I see blue sky peeking through).

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    p>I am not defending Severin. I can’t stand Severin. But I always have mixed feelings when something like this happens. Station management has been well aware, since day one, how offensive Severin is. But now, suddenly, he’s over the top? What, did a big advertiser get scared? The hypocrisy is stunning.

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    p>I don’t believe that he went too far. (Meaning, of course he went too far, but he always has — it’s something else.)

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    p>WTKK has degraded Boston talk since the day it arrived, but it was tolerated. Romney was a Severin regular while he was governor. He even guest-hosted for a week while Severin was away.

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    p>I am tempted to say this is a freedom of the press issue, but I can’t quite get there. At bottom, it’s a guy getting fired (presumably) for doing the same stuff he was handsomely paid to do for years and years.

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    p>Severin is the symptom. WTKK management is the problem. I can’t wait to hear what jerk they hire next.

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    p>

      • Point out what civil liberty has been infringed when a private communications company fires a shock jock because he said something stupid, racist, and misogynistic, and perhaps the ACLU will be interested. If you can’t point to a civil liberty, and it’s really a private matter between a boss and a moronic worker, leave the ACLU out of it.

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        p>Oh, wait. Were you trying to make a clever suggestion that there’s some ACLU double standard here where they won’t defend Severin’s supposed civil liberties but they would some liberal in the same situation? Sorry, missed that at first. Hahahaha. Nailed it. Ha. Ha.

    • Short answer: WTTK noticed they’re paying him $1M and getting #14 in the ratings in return.  So one of two things is happening – they’re using this dust-up to boost ratings on his return, or they’re using it as an excuse to can his ass.

  4. missed something in the race issue.  If true bigots need spiritual growth in order to evolve to that higher level of human existence then Clockwork Oranging or apartheid-ing them only serves those secret government social engineering think tanks.

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    p>Now I know nobody got that one!

  5. Sometimes it’s all in the numbers.  From today’s Boston Herald:

    Brian Maloney, author of the Radio Equalizer blog, believes WTKK can’t afford to pay Severin anymore and they’re “afraid to admit it.” Severin inked a seven-year deal in 2006 that pays him more than $1 million a year plus bonuses, the Herald has reported.

    The station has yet to give a reason for Severin’s suspension.

    Severin’s ratings have plunged in recent months.

    New ratings for the first three months of this year – with the portable people meters – show that Severin dropped to 14th place with a 3.6 share among the key 25 to 54-year-old listeners. Rival Howie Carr on WRKO-AM (680) was sixth with a 5.2.

    During the fall ratings period, under the old diary system, Severin was third with a 5.5. share.

    • MY favorite Jay Severin moment was when I was doing “rapid responder” for the Kerry Campaign, and Jesse Gordon and I were the ONLY two Kerry supporters among about 900 drunk Bushies, doing live mike up against Severin and I got Severin to call Bush W a “moronic parrot”.  Right, Jesse?  Than Margery Eagen picked it up.  Five seconds of fame.  in 2004.

      • Strangely enough, I think I remember hearing that on the radio.  What I recall it was after a debate, Severino was looped, and admitted Bush had been “a retarded parrot”.  Might have been a different time than you’re alluding to, though.

    • …given that Severin has “only” been behaving no worse than he always has, one would think he’s got a good lawsuit to file, if in fact he has been fired.  (At the very least, he’ll get a chunk of that money…another example of no justice in the world)

    • If the ratings are as bad as you say there are a MILLION resons for WTKK to let go of Severin.

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      p>His act has not changed that much so I can’t see THAT being the reason!

  6. was when Severin continued to refer to Obama’s Inauguration as “Reparation’s Day”.
    He was able to get away with much of his racism by prefixing remarks with, “others are saying.”
    There are too many like minded listeners for him to dissappear permantly.

    • Disagreeing with the president is racism. The president using the disability population for humor is quite fine? Geez, I’m glad I’m unenrolled. Am I the only one seeing something wtrong here?  

      • Disagreeing with the President is not, in itself, racism. Ranting hysterically against policies of this President, after being perfectly fine with nearly-identical policies of his White predecessor, does raise the possibility that there’s racism involved.

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        p>The President referring humorously to disabled people is not “quite fine.” That’s why he apologized for it, even before the reference was broadcast, and before anyone had a chance to yell at him about it. Please contrast that with his predecessor’s failure to apologize for joking about WMDs, about people made homeless by Katrina, about the wounds of soldiers in Iraq, &c.

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        p>You certainly are seeing something wrongly. I can’t say whether you’re the only one doing so, but I doubt it.

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