WRKO cancels appearance by Imus sidekick
WRKO-AM reversed itself today and said former Don Imus producer and sidekick Bernard McGuirk will not be a guest co-host this week on Thomas Finneran's morning talk show.
"Julie Kahn and Jason Wolfe, after much deliberation, have decided not to go ahead with this appearance at this time. They don't think it's appropriate at this time," said George Regan, spokesman for Entercom Communications, the parent company of WRKO. Kahn is Entercom's vice president and market manager. Wolfe is vice president of AM programming at WRKO and WEEI.
Last week in a Globe story, Wolfe championed what would have been three appearances this week by McGuirk on "Finneran's Forum," the show hosted by the disgraced former speaker of the Massachusetts House. "There's no question in my mind, Bernard has an incredible personality," Wolfe said. "He's entertaining, very witty."
But McGuirk's witless past was clearly too radioactive for WRKO to go ahead with its plan. It was good it could see the Geiger counter rising.
Imus became known for calling the black players from Rutgers national runner-up women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos." (For whore)." But it was McGuirk who instigated the banter by calling the women "hard-core hos." McGuirk also called the title game between Rutgers and Tennessee a contest of "jigaboos versus the wannabees."
That fit with McGuirk's job description that was exposed 10 years ago when Mike Wallace reminded Imus in a "60 Minutes" interview that Imus himself said "Bernard McGuirk is there to do nigger jokes."
Imus and McGuirk lost their nationally-broadcast radio and TV shows after several Fortune 500 advertisers abandoned them. Regan would not comment on why WRKO cancelled McGuirk's appearance, but "Finneran's Forum," in morning drive time, does have several major sponsors, including Comcast, Norvartis and General Motors. Throughout the show, listeners are reminded that WRKO is flagship station of the Boston Red Sox.
Such large sponsors often make a big show of their diversity efforts. Comcast, for instance, says it funds "local nonprofit organizations encouraging tolerance, acceptance and understanding of different perspectives among young people."
No one could have sanely argued that Bernard McGuirk, long an agent of intolerance, would have fit Comcast's diversity profile. At least WRKO recognized that in time to spare itself and the city of Boston the potential embarrassment of giving him safe harbor.
Derrick Z. Jackson is a Globe columnist. His e-mail address is jackson@globe.com.
