By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Piercing talk radio

Charlie Pierce is on a talk-radio rampage. Last month he went after WTKK (96.9 FM), and specifically Don Imus, Michael Graham, Jay Severin, Laura Ingraham and Michele McPhee, whom he doesn’t actually name, referring to her only as “a woman who sounds like she’s shouting her program off the back porch of a three-decker in Revere.”

Now he’s back, targeting Tom Finneran of WRKO (AM 680) as host of “one of the lamest shows in the history of the electric radio device.”

I can’t say I disagree, except to note that McPhee doesn’t actually shout. It only seems that way.

Previous

JFK’s posthumous terrorist-coddling

Next

Younger and cheaper (II)

18 Comments

  1. Anonymous

    I guess Charlie Pierce is just going to have to suck it up and stick to Public Radio He’s a hard guy to please.

  2. Dan Kennedy

    Anon 8:00: You think so? Tell us — who on that list do you think kicks ass? Why?

  3. mike_b1

    Charles Pierce is a funny, funny man. Wish we had more like him.

  4. Anonymous

    Dan, I like everyone on TKK, except Jay.RKO has Howie (in short doses) I will have to agree with him on the felon in the morning. Top of the list is Laura Ingraham she’s smart funny and does a great job. But if you don’t like her politics she is not for you. I know it’s just his opinion but he does not seem to like anyone. I’d like to see his list of who he likes.

  5. Dan Kennedy

    I like Dan Rea, Tom Ashbrook, Christopher Lydon (still available via podcast), Jim Braude and Margery Eagan. Howie Carr is a huge but mostly wasted talent.I really liked David Brudnoy and Jerry Williams, who are no longer with us; Gene Burns, who left town; and Peter Meade, who quit the business. The late Paul Sullivan was always worth a listen, too.

  6. Anonymous

    I still catch Gene Burns from time to time on KGO’s Website It’s amusing hearing him try to keep his cool when the loons from San Francisco call in. I miss his transiting the meridian on RKO.

  7. Anonymous

    David Finnegan wasn’t too bad, either, but that was decades ago….

  8. Anonymous

    i’d bet an adjustable rate mortgage payment charlie’s never been invited on any of those shows he pans and the ones he’s been on didn’t make the list. just a guess.

  9. Larz

    They’re great marketing tool for Sirius, iPods, CD’s and even old vinyl. What ever happened to Carl deSuze?— Larz

  10. Anonymous

    Finneran may be a convicted felon, but at least he tries to have intelligent discussions, albeit often boring. He has improved, and the daily guest hosts works better than him as a solo act.Braude and Egan are a great team because they dicuss important (and sometimes unimportant) issues from opposide sides of the political spectrum and actually sound as if they are enjoying it. It’s the type of discussions that have gonethe way of teh dinosaur thanks to the scorched-Earth political policy first implemented by Newt Gingrich with his Contract for America and taken to the Nth degree by all the conservative nuts hosting almost all of talk radio shows across the nation.And we wonder why the two-party system isn’t working well.

  11. Rick in Duxbury

    Carl passed away 10 years ago. Urbane, smart, kind gentleman. He would last about 30 seconds today.

  12. Steve

    Anon 6:51 – Charlie is primarily a sports writer, and doesn’t really fit with political squawk radio. He has done some fairly hilarious appearances on WEEI (when he has a book to push), where his lefty politics clash humorously with some of the conservative football zeitgeist of the place.

  13. Anonymous

    EB3 HereTalk radio should have some entertainment value. The “whiner line” is the only entertaining thing on Boston talk radio

  14. Dan Kennedy

    EB3: If you think the whiner line is entertaining, then you’ve been abused by talk radio for too long.

  15. Steve

    Sticking up for EB3 here: I *love* the whiner line. (The WEEI “Big Show” version, that is. I’ve caught snatches of Howie Carr’s version, which is downright moronic.)There is no accounting for taste, I guess.

  16. Anonymous

    EB3 here Dan,If I was on a desert island I would think Phyllis Diller was good looking.Any port in a storm as they say and Bosotn talk radio is very vanilla and boring.

  17. Steve

    If I was on a desert island I would think Phyllis Diller was good looking.I’m reconsidering sticking up for EB3 now.

  18. Anonymous

    I wish Charlie Pierce was better on the radio. People in glass houses and all. I find him to be not nearly as funny as he thinks he is, and not particularly funny to begin with. Sorry Charlie.

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén