WRKO Clarifies McGuirk Bid

The Boston Globe

By Carolyn Y. Johnson

News that controversial former Imus sidekick Bernard McGuirk would cohost Tom Finneran’s morning talk show on WRKO-AM (680) for three days next week created a stir yesterday, and the station issued a statement to clarify its position on his appearance.

“There is no job offer, just a chance to be a guest host, period,” said George Regan, spokesman for Entercom Communications, parent company of WRKO. “They’re looking at him as a potential cohost, but they’re looking at a lot of people.”

WRKO has put a number of cohosts on “Finneran’s Forum” since the show debuted in February in its search for a good match. Earlier this week, Jason Wolfe, vice president of AM programming and operations at WRKO and WEEI, told the Globe that McGuirk’s appearance was part of that search.

Regan said yesterday that the three-day spot was not an audition, but said he could not rule out the possibility that McGuirk would be offered a job.

McGuirk and Don Imus were fired by CBS Radio last month over racist remarks about the Rutgers University women’s basketball team.

Karl Frisch, a spokesman for Media Matters, a progressive media watchdog in Washington, D.C., said that the kind of bigotry that McGuirk regularly displayed on the Imus show should not be allowed back on the air.

“The Imus scandal led to a broad national conversation about gender and race in the media, and I think it’s important we learn something from that,” Frisch said.

May 19, 2007 | Filed Under Media Matters, News Mentions 

Comments

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.