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The Dan Patrick Show is Coming To CSNNE on Monday, Jason Wolfe denounces Portnoy

August 12, 2011 By

Starting on Monday, The Dan Patrick Show will be shown on CSNNE from 9:00 am to Noon. Similar to NESN’s move of simulcasting The Dennis and Callahan Show, the move is a no-brainer for CSNNE, giving them a ncie three-hour block of programming in the mornings.

If you haven’t seen/heard the show, I highly recommend it. It’s informative, but also entertaining, without the “men yelling at each other” schtick which is so popular on sports talk these days. Nice move for CSNNE.

In addition to the 9:00-noon block, there will also be a “best of” block from 5:00-6:00 in the afternoon.

*******************

Barstool Sports yesterday posted pictures of Tom Brady’s two-year old son naked on a beach, and added commentary to the pictures which was offensive to many. The topic has been pretty all WEEI has talked about since yesterday afternoon. Barstool head David Portnoy has been a regular guest on WEEI, making weekly appearances recently on The Dennis and Callahan Show. This morning, WEEI programming head Jason Wolfe made it clear that Portnoy will not be making future appearances.

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Clearly, WEEI is drawing a line in the sand here as to what is acceptable behavior for their guests and what is not.  (This same station had Bob Gamere on as a guest host in the morning a few years back, before he was indicted on child porn charges, but after he had already had other questionable incidents and there were plenty of rumors out there about him.)

A couple things about this whole incident, though. WEEI has made the decision to loudly denounce the posting of the pictures and the commentary with them. But by spending endless amount of time talking about them, aren’t they sort of contributing to the notoriety attached to this incident? How many people have learned about it because of WEEI endlessly talking about it, thus going to check it out for themselves, and adding to the page views of Barstool? Had they simply denounced the post, and said that Portnoy would no longer be on the air, wouldn’t that have perhaps caused this whole thing to die down a little quicker? Instead, WEEI is actually capitalizing on the incident, piggybacking on Barstool Sports and using the incident to their own advantage. I don’t know how I feel about that.

The second thing I wonder is this: If Tom Brady were not himself a weekly guest of The Dennis and Callahan Show during the football season would Wolfe and the station have seen fit to condemn Portnoy in such a fashion?

I have my doubts about that.

The upside of this is the all-out WEEI/Barstool Sports war that is sure to ensue from this.

Just a few other links this morning:

Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter NESN - My SB Nation Boston media column looks at the exodus from NESN, and how far the station has fallen.

Just airing out a few things… - Chad Finn touches on five items of interest in the Boston sports media world this week.

PatriotsLinks.com - Check out all the coverage of last night’s Patriots preseason opener here.

Filed Under: Morning Links
  • Mike

    While not disputing your take on WEEI – I think the post was reprehensible. Just completely unnecessary and had an absolute lack of decency.

    • http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com Bruce Allen

      I don't disagree with you.

  • tl;dr

    So that's what Jason Wolfe looks like. I pictured a short guy in his 60's possibly smoking a cigar due to all the cracks about his height and how out of touch he is.

  • Ryan Hadfield

    Bruce, very good angle to take. The backlash is almost disingenuous to a point. Usually a press release would be enough — Wolfe flying off the handle on Twitter seems a bit brash.

    That being said this was an example of new-media failing at every turn. The post was repulsive.

    • latetodinner

      Ryan…what was Wolfe supposed to do…issue a press release that gets ignored. As you point out what Portnoy did was repulsive or reprehensible. Wolfe was in a tough position because he had a business relationship with Portnoy. Wolfe distanced WEEI from Portnoy unequivocally. I am frustrated with Wolfe and his management of WEEI's content as much as the next person but I think he handled this perfectly. Anger over such an insipid posting is not a bad thing…nor is it unprofessional. Maybe they at WEEI actually learned from the Gamere mess, and did not want to repeat the mistakes of tacit approval they made last time?

  • Theo

    Anytime a media outlet covers something that's viewed as "wrong" to many you could make the argument that they are contributing to the notoriety! WEEI isn't doing anything wrong by talking about it. While I wish we lived in a society where this was a non-story, we don't, and it's a MAJOR story anytime Brady is involved which you know.

    GREAT news about Patrick coming to CSNNE! They going to do that across all their networks I wonder?

  • mandb97

    Portnoy is live on ustream right now. He is getting emails from media locally and nationally to go on the air. Portnoy said Jason Wolfe is 2'4" and in six months will be asking him for a job. P.S. if you are at work and want to watch be aware he is throwing out a few four letter words.

    • mandb97

      Bruce, Portnoy just read your post on Ustream. He agreed with your take on Gamere.

      • fitchburg

        That's great. How else can Bruce Allen help him?

        • Dave Thomas

          I agree. I'm sure Bruce is rooting for Portnoy. Maybe he can send a naked picture of his child so Portnoy can make a joke of it then print up a T-shirt so he can money off of it and split the profits with Bruce.

    • mandb97

      One more piece of play-by-play from Barstool headquarters. Portnoy just went after Dale Arnold who has been one of the most vocal critics of Babygate. Portnoy said Dale Arnold has no self-worth to stick around a company that actually has for all intensive purposes been fired. He lumped Gary Tanguay in there as well. He also called Michael Holley, Glen Ordway's puppet. Portnoy has since taken down the live stream due to PC issues.

      • Winning_

        Wow, talk about Portnoy going off the deep end. I agree WEEI is contradicting itself by removing Portnoy, but using this as a topic for debate. I have not, nor will not go to Barstool to see this post or article, but how did I hear about it. WEEI (98.5 was on break) was talking about it. They actually had callers telling them to talk Pats and Ordway said something along the lines of "we talked pats the first 1-2 hours, now we're talking this." We can debate whether they should be talking about it this intensely seeing as they just removed Portnoy, but I feel WEEI is acting foolishly.

        So much for WEEI trying to connect with the Younger Generation by getting hip and trendy. That lasted long.

      • tl;dr

        Intents and purposes. It actually makes way more sense when you say/type it correctly.

        • mandb97

          yes Sister Mary Elephant.

        • tl;dr

          I'm just telling you so you don't embarrass yourself in the future. I used to say it wrong for years until someone corrected me. There's no malice behind it and I'd hope to enlighten you because the correct way of saying it makes more sense.

          You're welcome.

        • Mike

          yeah, "all intensive purposes"…that's a whole nother subject,

      • latetodinner

        You would think that a person who has made his reputation out of ridiculing famous people for doing dumb things would know enough to keep his mouth shut. Attacking WEEI or Jason Wolfe because they discontinued a relationship because of something stupid you did just makes your look even dumber.

  • Mike in Southie

    Wolfe is the luckiest guy in all of boston media. no pun intended….the epitome of the Peter Principle

  • donna28

    It seems pretty obvious to me that WEEI's "outrage" is drummed up to drive ratings. A caller just asked Mut & Merloni if they thought they were part of the problem in continuing to talk about it and they were "shocked" that they were being accused of such a thing and aren't you just disgusted by the whole thing?!?! Ugh… so transparent. Not unlike the example given above, if they really wanted the moral high ground they would have eaten the contracts of the racist, xenophobic misogynists they employ in the mornings.

  • MrEdRomero

    Barstool jokes about teacher/student scandals almost daily. This week, he joked about a 30-year-old beating up a 12-year-old because over a boyfriend. The joke about Brady's son is consistent with what Portnoy has been doing for years. Yet, EEI still decided to pay him to go on the air with them.

    • Dave Thomas

      I'm sure you are one of the many pedophiles that are enjoying themselves while looking at the picture of a naked 2 year old boy.

      • tl;dr

        You assume to much Dave.

        Aren't you supposed to be flipping burgers in the great beyond?

        • Dave Thomas

          That response was as clever as making a joke over a naked 2 year old boy.
          Did you channel Keith Foulke to help you come up with that hysterical response.

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  • Fred

    First off, I think WEEI is doing the correct thing in their vehement denouncing of Portnoy. This d-bag takes(not literally) a photo showing the naked son of the biggest athlete in town, and one of the greatest of all time, and makes extremely graphic statements about it. Of course they want to get as far away from him as they can. Second, posting news stories about teacher sex scandals does not rise to what was posted yesterday. Third, we all know what Portnoy did, he admitted to it. All Gamere was "guilty" of was taking a walk on the wild side in the Fenway, and his conviction was back in '07-'08, long after his appearance on the radio. Is Jason Wolfe a donkey? Yes, his hiring of Mike Adams, Larry John, Craig Mustard, Butch Stearns, etc.. prove that, but in this instance, he is taking the correct stance.

    • MrEdRomero

      " Second, posting news stories about teacher sex scandals does not rise to what was posted yesterday"
      I think if you look at what he has written in the past, you'll see the rise on the offense meter isn't too great. What was posted yesterday may have been his worst offense, but it's not surprising coming from a tasteless website that pushes boundaries. If Chad Finn did something like this, I could see the outrage and shock. WEEI knew, or should have known, what they were getting when they brought in Portnoy. Thus, I see their reaction to be a bit disingenuous.

  • fitchburg

    Some detestable piece of garbage cashes in on a kid and the story is about EEI's twitter activity? Then you "don't disagree" with it being reprehensible, yet you make the story about EEI "cashing in" (ie talking about it). Are you friendly with the piece of garbage? Perhaps a friend of a friend?

    Maybe the extra attention to it will put pressure on the piece of garbage to take it down?

  • latetodinner

    Bruce:
    On the Barstool posting the nakkid picture of Tom and Giselle's prodigy I think this is a not a case of bad judgement, child porn, or inappropriateness. I think it is another case of entitlement. David Portnoy does not see the child as a person. He sees him as a prop in a comedy bit. As such he thinks he is entitled to comment about the child, make him part of the public discussion because in his eyes the child is not human. It does not occur to Portnoy that the child is not old enough to know he is the butt of some adolescent joke. Portnoy does not consider that when the child (I am purposely not using his name) is older and friends google him, not only this picture but Portnoy's comments and the resulting controversy will be there, forever, for all to see and read about.

    I have argued many times that celebrities make their living in the fame industry and as such they never get "personal" time. At the same time…children of celebrities are not celebrities. Tom and Giselle are totally fair game. If either of them were nakkid…have at. We have no royalty in the USA…being born to famous parents does not make you a target unless you are used by the famous parents as a prop in their quest for greater celebrity (See John Barrymore/Drew, Ryan O'Neal/Tatum, Madonna/Lourdes etc). Michael Jackson…arguably the worst media whore ever….after the baby dangling fiasco, never let his kids out in public without either disguise or full covering…just so they could have some privacy… Tom and Giselle don't exploit their child. They don't take money for pictures of him. They aren't selling rights to his birthday parties. As such the child should reasonably expect a level of privacy and respect. Its not his fault he was born to an NFL superstar and a Brazillian Super Model. David Portnoy and his ilk don't understand that they are not "entitled" to expose the child to ridicule just because they can.

    So understanding this, I think WEEI is right beating this drum and shining a light on Barstool. WEEI was embarrassed because of its affiliation with Portnoy and Barstool. They were caught in a dilemma. If they don't say anything then people will think their silence is tacit approval. As soon they say anything, press release, on air announcement, anything…the phone boards light up with people having a take. It is a caustic topic because the person being exploited/abused is an innocent 2 year old. I listened to Dale and DeOzzie for about 90 minutes this morning. They kept trying to say we would like to talk about the game last night when another caller would call in and give his opinion on the controversy.

    Lastly on this topic, Barstool can go to war with WEEI all it wants. If WEEI is smart their on air hosts never mention the site again after today, never acknowledge a war and never fight back. Barstool is the tainted one…they will never be looked at the same again.

    • tl;dr

      tl;dr

  • latetodinner

    Boston Sports Media Comment that will be lost today because of the Barstool mess:

    Several weeks ago I was pretty hard on Kathryn Tappan for not understanding or knowing the "18 year old Canadians play in the Juniors rather than the AHL" rule. At 7:00 this morning Steve DeOzzie talking on WEEI did not know the rules for players put on the PUP List. A caller asked about it and he said "I think a player on PUP can't practice then some time around week 6 the team has a week to evaluate him". The rule is a player on the PUP list has to sit out the first 6 weeks. Then he has 3 weeks to come off the list and either start practicing or he goes on IR. If he is not on the active roster by week 9 then he goes on IR. This is basic stuff a "football" expert should know. Dale should have known it. This is not like understanding the Salary Cap. Deozzie has issues…but he usually knows basic things…at 8:15 he even said to a caller in relation to the barstool sports controversy "I am not a legal expert, so I can't give you an opinion…I am a football expert ask me anything you want about football."

  • fitchburg

    Some detestable piece of garbage cashes in on a kid and the story is about EEI's twitter activity? Then you "don't disagree" with it being reprehensible, yet you make the story about EEI "cashing in" (ie talking about it). Are you friendly with the piece of garbage?

    • Jon

      We heard you the first time and we don't care.
      Portnoy is clearly a nimrod of the first order. Good job with the free publicity WEEI!

  • Patrick

    Let’s say for example, a picture surfaced on the internet of one of Brad and Angelina’s 2 year old kid naked on the beach and the EXACT same post came up on Barstool Sports. You don’t think D and C would not only post this on their “mature audiences” only link, but also have it be their caption contest for the week?

    The issue is that is Brady’s kid, and Brady is WEEI’s binky. I didn’t agree with the picture, and didn’t think it was all that funny, but WEEI has most certainly benefitted by talking about it. Controversy drives discussion. The picture was also on several hundred other websites. You don’t have to like the picture or think it’s acceptable, but allowing callers to rant that Portnoy should be behind bars, killed, etc. is way out of line.

    • Patrick

      apologies for the lack of a spell check on my part

    • latetodinner

      And D&C would have been wrong. We as disciples of Bruce and therefore self appointed media watchdogs would have slammed them for it. Its not that complicated if you understand the concepts of right and wrong which side of the line what Portnoy did falls.

    • APimpNamedDaveR

      You hit the nail on the head, Patrick.

  • Paul of Fox

    Bruce,
    Normally, I agree with most of your criticism of the BSM, but this time I have to point out the hypocrisy of your post. You are being critical of WEEI for endlessly talking about Brady's kid (so far, for less than 24 hours) as it only brings attention to Barstool Sports and themselves. The idea is that they are exploiting the attention for their own monetary gain. Um, you're doing the same thing here. No one forced you to post about it, and you have ads that must help cover the bills. So aren't you also capitalizing on this controversy? Personally, I don't see anything wrong with what WEEI's or your website has done here. It's news, so it gets talked about. But don't criticize WEEI for taking advantage of the controversy while doing the exact same thing yourself. There's plenty of other reasons to criticize WEEI…

    • APimpNamedDaveR

      So Bruce, who reports news relating to the Boston sports media, should not be reporting on the thing that the Boston sports media has been talking about all morning?

      That makes zero sense.

      • fitchburg

        is barstool boston media? if so, why did he skip that one?

      • Paul of Fox

        So WEEI, who reports news related to Boston sports, should not be reporting on Barstool's controveral coverage of Brady's kid because it will bring more attention to Barstool? It makes no sense for Bruce to be critical of WEEI for bringing attention to Barstool when his thread here does the same thing. In fact, it can be argued that this thread is even worse. What's said on WEEI's airwaves is quickly gone while what's posted on the internet can live forever. In 20 years, Brady's kid will probably be able to Google this story and read all about it…but he won't likely be able to find a recording of the Big O or Mikey sounding off (well, let's hope he can't).

        Again, I have no problem with Bruce posting about Barstool. It only makes sense for him to post on here about this because of all the attention in the BSM. I just have an issue with his criticism of WEEI for talking about it when he's also doing the same thing.

  • APimpNamedDaveR

    I personally don't give a rat's behind about this manufactured controversy.

    The photo and comments are right in line with Barstool's ouevre. WEEI suddenly discovering that Barstool can be, in their view, crude and tasteless and being shocked, SHOCKED!!!! that such things exist in our world, let alone under the WEEI banner, is the epitome of self-serving bullspit. THEY sought out Portnoy to "young up" D&C. And when Portnoy did just that — I'd be willing to guarantee that few, if any, of the demographic WEEI thought they were attracting by adding Portnoy cared about the post in question enough to be offended or put out — suddenly they mount their High Horse of Moral Righteousness.

    Which is vomitously absurd and hypocritical, especially coming from the radio show that asked how the police could possibly spot an escaped gorilla among METCO students.

    WEEI and their self-serving BS can go fornicate with themselves. They are ABSOLUTELY exploiting this, as Bruce says.

    • latetodinner

      Dave…usually I agree with almost everything you say. You almost always teach me something even when we disagree…so I don't get the venom you have for WEEI in all this. As best I can tell Wolfe admitted today that he made a mistake hiring Portnoy. He did not say it in those words but by saying Portnoy will not be on the air again so unequivocally he is saying…We made a mistake. Its one thing to be associated with a website that makes crude jokes at the expense of drunks, drunken celebs and wannabes. Its quite another to be aligned with one that makes jokes at the expense of defenseless 2 year old on a private beach 8000 miles away from supposedly any media attention. I don't think WEEI was shocked Barstool makes crude jokes. I think they were shocked they do so at the expense of a kid and then after given time to think about it defended their actions. As I understand it they took the picture down for a few hours at the request of some agency in Brazil and then said F*#k it and put it back up. At that point it their motives were no longer unknown. So I will ask you the same question I asked Ryan H…What was WEEI supposed to do?

      As for the hypocrisy…the Metco controversy was about comments made by a full time host. Different circumstances. Different control over the outcome.

      • APimpNamedDaveR

        What should they have done? Well, Wolfe did what he should have done — stated that they're not having Portnoy on the show anymore, and that WEEI doesn't condone that sort of behavior.

        And then, they drop the issue. It doesn't concern them — they didn't post the picture, they didn't advocate its appropriateness, it's not a sports topic, it involves a child who isn't a relevant topic of sports discussion, and their only real connection to it was tangential. If people want to call up and talk about it, the hosts are instructed to say "we don't approve of the photo as a station, and we think that talking about it only makes the harm caused even worse." End of discussion.

        That's precisely what they did NOT do, though. And why didn't they do it? Because they knew a significant portion of their listeners would be riled up about it, and when you're agitated or upset about something, one of the first things you do is seek out others who feel that way. And they knew that by leading the Charge of the Outraged Brigade, and fanning those flames, they'd get and hold those outraged listeners. It was self-serving.

        Also, the "well, people wanted to talk about it" argument shouldn't fly here. Just because WEEI gets a lot of callers who want to talk about something doesn't mean they should put them on the air and make that a topic of discussion. I'm sure there were a number of callers who, the first time Steve Buckley went on the Big Show after going public about his homosexuality, wanted to talk about how God Hates Fags and The Gay Agenda Is Destroying This Country and all the rest of that nonsense. Should those people have been allowed on the air to argue their cases and express their outrage? Of course not. EEI has the power — the absolute power — to control the discourse they engage in. If they wanted to snuff out Bradybabygate, they could have done it quickly and easily.

        As for the venom, it's more directed at EEI in general than towards this particular instance. That's a much longer story that isn't particularly relevant here, and probably isn't very interesting anyhow….

        • APimpNamedDaveR

          And the HTML Gods decided to restore the post I thought I had lost…..

        • mandb97

          Dave, you and Bruce are both correct on your media analysis of the Barstool controversy. With the exception of Dale Arnold, I felt some of the indignation was borderline fake. The reason I left out Dale is he has a track record of speaking up when he feels something is morally wrong. You may agree or disagree with him, but he is consistent. Ordway, in particular, came out as being phony. He first decides to bring up the topic as 98.5 was about to start their Patriots Pregame Show. WBZ was certainly not going to talk about the controversy, If Ordway felt the post was so over the top then why did he continually tell listeners to go to the website and check it out? His and WEEI's goal were threefold:
          1) get listeners in a frenzy to the point it becomes a newsworthy topic

          2) get WEEI's call letters on as many media outlets as possible

          3) ratings

          As Dave and Bruce said WEEI controls the talk. They could have taken, at most, one segment to talk about the topic with a couple of calls. Instead, they did marathon radio on the subject. I have hard time believing that it was done in order to take the moral high ground only. I find it very hard to believe as well that WEEI would be this outraged if they were not in bed with the Patriots.

          By the way, with regards to Michael Holley on the subject, I unfortunately agree with Dave Portnoy's assessment that Holley has become a puppet when working with Ordway.

          I have one question, how many high-fives did Entercom executives perform when they heard or read WEEI in the news or in a newspaper?

        • latetodinner

          Michael Holley a puppet…no way. He is the most dynamic talent WEEI has. His original thoughts and talent are without pier. *eye roll* :-)

        • mandb97

          Uh-oh somebody's Holley radar is on.

        • latetodinner

          Just waiting for you to fully join the DARK Side…

      • APimpNamedDaveR

        I think Wolfe did what he had to do, and what he should have done. I don't fault him.

        But the station should have canned discussion on the issue. It's not relevant to sports in Boston, it involved a child, and, as Bruce noted, discussion only made the perceived damage worse. That's what I object to.

        • latetodinner

          All I am saying is once the bottle was open I am not sure it was so easy…at least this AM to put the Genie back.

        • APimpNamedDaveR

          I had a longer reply that was eaten by the HTML gods…. but one of the points I made is that EEI controls the discourse utterly. If they wanted to avoid talking about it, it's trivially easy for them to avoid talking about it, even if that's what callers want to talk about. For example, I bet a good number of people wanted to call in and talk about Steve Buckley's homosexuality during his first appearance after he wrote his coming-out article. Did they allow that conversation to happen? I don't recall that they did — I think it was just mentioned, passed off, and then they went back to complaining about the Red Sox or something. They could have done the same thing here. But they didn't, because they perceived that fanning the flames would generate listeners and keep them through the day. That's my objection.

        • etak

          Well, actually, in his first post-coming-out show, that's practically all they talked about. But that was because he was on The Big Show specifically to publicize it.

          /Since/ then, they've mostly kept it out of the discussion, and I agree entirely that, what with the call screeners and the several-second delay, not to mention being able to hang up on callers, they can and do control the discourse, and definltely could have re-directed people calling in about the thing.

          So yeah, I largely agree.

        • APimpNamedDaveR

          Good point — I had forgotten that they did a special show with him. But I think the point remains — they can control the discourse.

        • etak

          Ayup. And aren't, in order to flog the situation.

    • mandb97

      Super post. WEEI knew exactly what they getting into when they hired Portnoy.

  • Dave Thomas

    Let's all defend Portnoy for making a joke of a naked 2 year old boy. It doesn''t matter who's boy it is, it is not very clever.
    All you defenders of Portnoy, I'm sure, don't mind that many pedophiles have probably copied the picture and sent it to their sick perverted friends to enjoy just like a 12 year old boy enjoys "himself" while sneaking a look at their father's Playboy magazine. Portnoy posted the stuff that pedophiles enjoy and you think it is just a joke. You are also pathetic Bruce for demeaning this into a story that is anti-WEEI and not what it truly is about.
    I can tell you from experience, the man that molested me when I was a child had a library of these type of pictures and how can anybody think this is a joke is a moron.

    • tl;dr

      Ah, so your rage isn't unbiased. Calm down.

      • Dave Thomas

        Hey Portnoy, aka tl;dr, you really have to be intelligient to find humor in a picture of a naked 2 year old boy. I'm sure the pedophiles out there love you for posting pictures of a naked boy and they hope you do more of it. That is not biased, that is factual. Then again, when it comes to making money, nothing, absolutely nothing gets in the way of some groups from trying to make a buck!

    • http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com Bruce Allen

      I really don't see anyone here defending Portnoy.

      I'm commenting on WEEI's approach to this because they are an outlet of the Boston sports media, and thus in my realm here. I'm not demeaning the story, I'm focusing on my own area of subject.

      I don't consider Barstool to be sports media. Barstool is secondary to what my focus is on this site. They have a tangential connection to sports . You don't see me commenting on other independent blogs here. Do I critique CelticsBlog.com? No, I don't consider them to be true sports media, no matter how big or good/bad the site is – and they are entirely devoted to a sport. Barstool is a bawdy humor site. If this were Boston Bawdy Humor Blog Watch, I'd probably be all over him.

      I do not condone the posting of the pictures nor his commentary of them. Let's be very clear on that. It was a tremendous lapse of judgement for him to post them.

      I understand that you are emotional about this topic, but I'm not the bad guy here.

      • fitchburg

        so the actual controversy isn't something you cover under some tenuous definition of what you think "boston sports media" means, but the ensuing commentary (in this case, two tweets) about the controversy is?

    • APimpNamedDaveR

      So, hypothetically, if I'm at the beach and someone's 2-year-old gets loose and starts running around with his pants off, and everyone on the beach laughs because it's cute and funny…. we have ourselves a beach full of pedophile morons?

      I'm sorry about your situation, but it appears to have made you lose touch with reality.

      • fitchburg

        You think that hypothetical is the same as a picture on the internet?

      • fitchburg

        You think this hypothetical is the same as posting a picture on the internet.

      • Dave Thomas

        Let me get this straight APimp, if you were to TAKE PICTURES of someone's 2-year-old boy who gets loose and starts running around with his pants off on the beach and post those pictures on the internet and add comments about the size of the 2 year old boys penis you think that is normal? Please explain that reality in your eyes.
        In case you forgot, the pictures posted on the internet can be copied and passed on to other pedophiles for their own personal enjoyment. I'm glady ou feel comfortable with that reality.

  • http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com Bruce Allen

    fitchburg and Dave Thomas are treading very close to "troll" status. Reading comprehension is not among either of your strong suits.

    On another note, this link was just sent to me:

    Boycott Barstool

    • fitchburg

      I must have missed something. I thought I understood what you wrote, but apparently not if you think I can't read.

      • APimpNamedDaveR

        And…. QED.

        • fitchburg

          wow, Latin. infant genitalia must make you smart.

    • Hieronymous

      Hilarious. Seems they have to go back to the page and refresh again . . . and again . . . to acquire that list of advertisers. You couldn't make it up. Anyway, glad to see you're covering this. Bottom line is if it weren't Brady's kid, nobody would care. Eeven then, seems like some folks are far more in an uproar about it than I suspect either Brady or Giselle are. They seem a lot more cosmopolitan than some of the small-minded people commenting.

  • Guest

    Many people seem to be missing the point here. You don't post nude pictures of someone else's young child without their consent. Period, end of discussion. The fact that he exploited the pictures for a cheap laugh and his own financial gain is reprehensible. That so many people are pooh-poohing this is amazing to me and really speaks volumes about the generation that makes up Portnoy's target audience.

    • APimpNamedDaveR

      Except it's not period, end of story.

      The laws are actually pretty clear on this point. If you're in a public place, you effectively lose your right to consent to the use of your image for non-commercial and non-defamatory purposes. Even if you're in a private place — say, your backyard — if a reasonable person would conclude that someone outside the private area could see them and their actions, you can be photographed without your consent. Even if you're naked, and two.

      Think about it — if you always required consent, nobody could ever post pictures of themselves at Disneyworld on Facebook, because those pictures will contain multiple children who aren't the children of the photographer. That doesn't change if the background kid decides to pull his pants down spontaneously (as 2-year-old boys tend to do).

      And it is not illegal to take, possess, or display pictures of nude children. It is illegal to take/possess/display pornographic pictures of children (whether or not they're nude). There are legal definitions of that, as you can read in the MLW post that Bruce linked below.

      Commercial use is a different story. A person typically has a great deal of control over the commercial use of images of themselves, regardless of whether they're in a public place or not. I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say that it's highly unlikely that there was deemed consent to commerical use in this case.

      The only possible thing that Portnoy did wrong from a legal perspective is trying to sell the t-shirts. The publishing of the picture was almost certainly 100% legal from a criminal perspective, and most likely legal from a civil (tort) perspective. (There might be a case if it were a private beach and the photographer was trespassing when the photograph was taken, but we don't know that to be the case.)

      You obviously find the act to be reprehensible, which isn't an unsupportable conclusion. But it was legal. And that's where it gets sticky. There are plenty of things out there that are legal but which most people would find distasteful. Like wearing white socks with black loafers, or wearing a Jeter shirt at Fenway.

      And there are definitely people out there who don't think this is a big deal at all. I'm one of them. It's not going to hurt the kid; he's 2. It's not going to hurt him in high school when his friends find it later (as someone posted here) — he's 2. It's a tempest in a teapot. I'm sure that somewhere there are pictures of me at age 2 where you can see Mr. Winky clear as day. If those were posted on this site for all to see, I wouldn't really care. Because I was 2.

  • http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com Bruce Allen

    Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly weighs in:

    The legal fallout from the Barstool Sports-Brady controversy

    Basically Portnoy has nothing to worry about from a legal standpoint.

    • Dave Thomas

      I'm sure you will be happy Bruce. I guess the only people who have some of ethics about posting naked pictures of other people's children and commenting on the genitals of a 2 year old boy are trolls!! See ya. I'll never give a dime to you when you beg for donations and I hope others will join. I'm never visiting this site again so enjoy your pictures of naked boys and celebrate with all the other pedophiles that are supporting NAMBLA and David Portnoy.

      • http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com Bruce Allen

        …and the troll status is clinched.

        Way to muddy the waters and to reaffirm that you simply cannot read nor comprehend.

        • etak

          Hey, Bruce, did you ban him, or can I respond to some of the stuff emanating from him?

      • Winning_

        lol you swear you'll never come to this site yet you keep commenting ranting and raving. You clearly cannot read, and I'm betting you got low scores on reading and comprehension in Grade school, along with logic and reasoning in college.

    • latetodinner

      I never thought that was going to be an issue. The issue isn't legal although some people seem to think it is. It isn't about pedophilia, although I can see how someone might only see that because they refuse to see context. It is purely about exploitation of a 2 year olds image for the amusement and profit of a satire based website. Bruce, I think some posters have reading issues. They see your assault on Barstool and WEEI as having equal weight therefore they do not think you are sufficiently repuled by what Barstool did. I know the truth because I have known you a long time but I think by the 60+ posts on this topic that some people get angry if you see fault in more than one place. I disagree that WEEI is wrong in this case, but I can understand why you would think what they are doing is. Its anyone defending Portnoy I don't get.

      • APimpNamedDaveR

        I wouldn't defend him, as I think it was a stupid move, because he should have forseen that it would blow up in his face.

        But I do think, as I said above, that the action itself isn't a big deal, and isn't even close to being the big deal it's been turned into by EEI. I see commercial exploitation of images of 2-year-olds and younger every day — they're called "celebrity baby photos". Pick up any magazine and you can see them. It's pervasive, and it's part of the cost of being a celebrity figure. The only really relevant issues here are that (a) the kid's naked, and (b) Portnoy spoke to his endowment. And that's more of a taste issue than anything else. If he had just run the pictures of Giselle and the kid without that comment, and without highlighting the fact that the kid was naked, would anyone have even noticed? And if they did, would there be massive outrage? I really don't think so. So I don't think it's a big deal. Bad taste, but ultimately harmless.

        But I can easily see how reasonable people can disagree, which is why I think it was profoundly stupid for him to post in that way.

        • latetodinner

          Dave where we disagree is there is no consent from Giselle for the picture to have been taken. She had the kid 8000 miles south of Boston on a private beach well hidden from the world. If he had run any picture of of the kid I would object. Its the same reason I hate ESPN's coverage of the Little League World Series…or the show Toddlers and Tiaras…they are kids and should not be exploited because they are not old enough to know about consent. When "celebrity baby" pictures are shown the parents (being utter publicity whores) usually consent to them. Not the case here.

          Other than that we completely agree.

  • Jason_Coyote

    All good points – in particular Bruce, I also wonder how EEI would have dealt with this mess if Brady wasn’t a regular weekly guest on the station. Also wonder (although not very much) if Wolfe was reactive and told by his bosses to make a statement as opposed to him going to those above him and suggesting the station distance themselves from El Prez and his site.

    While it may be true that EEI knew what it was getting into with a BS marriage, they could have never imagined the guy would lower his barstool to the level he has with this story.

    • APimpNamedDaveR

      JC — I think neither you nor EEI actually read/followed the site prior to the hiring of Portnoy. Because if you/they did, you'd/they'd have known that this is EXACTLY where his barstool is leveled….

  • etak

    A pox on both their houses.

    I didn't hear Ordway yesterday, but Mikey was one-note and boring about it, and Dale and DeOssie were sanctimonious.

    But I don't think Barstool's got much of a leg to stand on, either. (Of course, I didn't like them anyway, since I'm nowhere near their demographic and I find them boring and excessive.)

    From a management perspective, I don't actually think Wolfe needed to go on the offensive that quickly, but then again, I don't know if there's Patriots influence behind the scenes. Or if Wolfe/'EEI were anticipating potential influence-usage.

    (Oh, I found out about the whole schmugass via Twitter. Dale's Twitter, in which Dale was being Outraged. Whee.)

  • alex

    It was a douchebag move by Portnoy. I mean my sense of humor isn't exactly high brow but really now…Anyways, here's hoping he doesn't go ahead and make t-shirts out of this.

  • mandb97

    Ordway, Felger and Massarotti were off today. Tom E. Curran was paired with Holley on WEEI, while Marc Bertrand and Mike Flynn were on 98.5, It was great radio on both stations.

    • Winning_

      It was radio porn lol. I listened to the Big Show for the 1st time in its entirety. No offense to Flynn and Beetle, but I wanted to see what Holley and Curran was like. If it were up to me, that would be a great afternoon drive.

      • mandb97

        Holley started to talk about Portnoy again, but it was ok because I could switch to 98.5 and it was fine. A rare day because I could not lose.

  • Tember

    On NESN…let us not forget they lost an Emmy Award winning programming expert in Joel Feld. The door just keeps on revolving.

  • Classless

    WEEI are hypocrites because they employ Mikey Adams, who makes sexual innuendos every 10 minutes that aren't remotely funny and practically disrobes in front of any female intern they have. The irony of ironies is that Adams was outraged at the Barstool post. Funny because his lame show features one of their "writers", Jerry "Mr.Smithers" Thornton.

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  • j0esixpack

    Looks like someone forced Portnoy to take down the links
    http://boycottbarstool.wordpress.com/

  • bawnkers

    Bruce,

    Why is Tom still doing interviews on WEEI? I'd love for him to move over to T+R.

    @realpatriots
    New England Patriots
    The first "Patriots Monday" of 2011 kicks off tomorrow morning with Tom Brady at 6:30 am on WEEI.
    1 hour ago via TweetDeck

    http://twitter.com/#!/realpatriots/status/1028671…

  • NutCracker

    Man, I've been out-of-town all last week so I missed all the fireworks about Brady's little boy but I'll give my take on barstool anyway. David Portnoy is an untalented, debile, homely, untalented rich kid from Marblehead who relies on repugnant shock-jock material; the more vile it is, the better as far as he's concerned. His weasel 'stoolies' are much like him; insecure, immature, wimps from wealthy Boston suburbs who believe that it makes you 'cool dude' to swear, put people down (rate) and behave like macho idiots. They go on Portney's site and try to one-up and out-do each other with clever, caustic cliches and comments. These fools seek a sense of belonging so they become 'stoolies'. If they weren't following and being hopelessly loyal to their self-anointed 'El Presidente', they would be the type of idiots who would end up following the Reverend's Sun Myung Moon or Jim Jones or some other brainwashing wacko. The Brady incident crossed the line in my opinion. For posters to argue that what Portney did was "legal" is missing the whole point. It was reckless, indecent and a perverse attempt at humor. There is much other material to use for laughs or shock than to use a child's genitals as subject matter. To commercially exploit it via t-shirt sales is even worse. Bottom line, it was disturbing. I can understand why people are calling for advertisers not to patronize his website. One of these days Portney is going to pick the wrong guy to insult and someone's going to go pay him a visit (although I think if you were to just scream at him the wuss would probably soil himself). Portney ought to apologize but I know it won't happen; that takes a man to admit he made a mistake.

  • Professional David

    Sport shows are important for the fans want an update with their favorite teams and players. But this show has been on the controversy and I hope that both parties had calmed down for the benefit of the show.

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