FRIDAY, MARCH 23 -- It was morning rush hour, and once again Gerry Callahan was yapping about the Boston Globe's decision to ban its writers from his raunchy "Dennis & Callahan" show on WEEI Radio (AM 850). According to a memo by Globe sports editor Don Skwar, "the show's tone and content are not up to the Globe's standards."

Echoing previous reported comments by 'EEI program director Jason Wolfe, Callahan aimed his fire at the Globe's alleged hypocrisy for allowing sportswriters Will McDonough and Dan Shaughnessy to appear regularly on former Globe columnist Mike Barnicle's show on WTKK Radio (96.9 FM). As Callahan accurately noted, Barnicle had "disgraced" his ex-employer by writing fabricated and plagiarized columns.

Callahan also broadened his indictment, charging that the Globe is being hypocritical not just for allowing McDonough and Shaughnessy to appear on Barnicle's program, but also for lending their names to a station that includes garbage-mouthed talk-show host Jay Severin and the syndicated "Imus in the Morning," a font of crude humor at the expense of blacks and gays.

Well, I don't mean to help Skwar and company make their case, but Callahan is comparing apples and oranges. Barnicle left the Globe amid an ethical firestorm of his own making, but as a talk-show host he's as offensive (and interesting) as processed cheese. McDonough and Shaughnessy may be showing poor judgment by helping to prop up Barnicle, but what justification could the Globe come up with to ban them? As for the fact that WTKK also employs Severin and carries Imus, Callahan's taking the guilt-by-association thing too far.

Here's the point Callahan could have made: how can the Globe ban its writers (principally sports columnist Bob Ryan, who had a regular gig) from "Dennis & Callahan" while allowing political columnist Tom Oliphant to pop up from time to time on "Imus in the Morning"? Ryan, one of the great sportswriters of his era, always conducts himself with dignity, even when Callahan and his partner, John Dennis, don't. Likewise Oliphant, though a columnist of considerably lesser talents than Ryan, has the wit never to stoop to the level of the Imus show -- which, though more tongue-in-cheek than "Dennis & Callahan," is certainly no less offensive. (Okay, I'll admit it: I like Imus.)

Meanwhile, it looks like a full-scale radio war is breaking out in the form of a proxy battle between the Globe and the Boston Herald. The local talk-show scene is loaded with Globe and Herald staffers and alumni, so a war would be a lovely thing -- not to mention a tangle of conflicts. For instance, in today's Herald the "Inside Track" pokes fun at the Globe over the "Dennis & Callahan" contretemps, and notes that the "Boring Broadsheet" had previously banned writers from 'EEI's "The Big Show," which can also get down and dirty. (That ban was instituted after Globie Ron Borges aimed an on-air ethnic slur at pitcher Hideki Irabu.) Yet though Tracksters Gayle Fee and Laura Raposa quoted Jason Wolfe, they somehow managed to avoid repeating Wolfe's references to Barnicle -- who is, after all, a part-time colleague at WTKK. (Fee and Raposa's show is broadcast right after Severin and right before a repeat of Barnicle's morning show.)

Callahan, of course, is a Herald columnist, as is Margery Eagan, who co-hosts a daytime show on 'TKK, and Howie Carr, another poster boy for racial and sexual crudity, who hosts the afternoon show on 'EEI's Entercom sister station WRKO (AM 680) -- and who is locked in a ratings battle with the aforementioned Severin. 'RKO is also the home of the "Daytime Divas," former Globe reporter Doreen Vigue and Darlene McCarthy, who's been with Globe cartoonist Paul Szep more or less forever, and who shamelessly promote the Sunday Globe every Friday.

With these kinds of conflicts, if war has broken out, will anyone be left standing?

Issue Date: March 22 - 29, 2001