The clout of Bruce Bradley

[Donna Halper]

At 08:16 PM 3/12/2008, iraapple wrote:

>Jerry seemed to have greatly embarrassed WBZ management when he debated Avi
>Nelson.  I did not hear those debates but I was told that Avi made Jerry
>look extremely bad; that Avi ate his lunch, etc.

Jerry was indeed treated unfairly at WMEX and his numbers were indeed 
excellent (I've seen them).  And yes, the media coverage of the 
debates with Avi Nelson (one of the first televised rightie versus 
leftie debates) do gently hint that Avi made the better points.  But 
Jerry was still very popular so nobody wanted to overtly come out and 
insult his performance.

Jerry was self-educated and a populist-- a Lou Dobbs kind of guy, and 
sometimes I think he wanted to prove that he could debate anyone, 
even people with more education or more expertise, and make them look 
foolish.  Most of these debates, even the ones on the air, turned out 
badly.  He had a guy from the KKK on his show in Chicago, and the 
media felt he let things really get out of hand... He was very good 
with the callers, and we all owe him for having made two-way talk 
popular in Boston, but alas, he was often his own worst enemy.  I'll 
say no more than that.