Green Bay, Wis., talk show host suspended for 2 weeks over comments made about Lawton

Green Bay talk show host suspended over comments

MADISON, Wis. — Conservative Green Bay radio talk show host Jerry Bader was suspended Thursday for two weeks over salacious comments he made speculating on why Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton suddenly dropped out of the governor’s race.

WTAQ-AM announced the suspension and said a decision about Bader’s future would be made in two weeks.

In a two-minute podcast posted Monday afternoon on WTAQ’s Web site, Bader made suggestive claims about Lawton’s personal life that he said explained her departure from the race. He said he had confirmed the claims with multiple sources.

On Tuesday, Bader retracted the story with a message on the Web site that said: “I have lost confidence in the sources that provided information yesterday regarding Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton. Therefore I cannot stand by the story posted yesterday.”

Lawton, a Democrat from Green Bay, said that when one of her staff members called to complain, Bader told him he was retracting the story. She said she did not personally speak with Bader or anyone from station management and she did not consider his statement on the Web site an apology.

Lawton called Bader’s suspension a “first step.”

“Perhaps a step that should have preceded it is a proper apology and I think that the station ownership and the Green Bay community need to consider what the economic impact is to them to have someone on the air hour after hour, day after day spewing this kind of garbage,” she said. “It brands the Green Bay area as a provincial backwater.”

Station manager Duke Wright said Bader posted the podcast on his own without anyone else hearing it first.

“I think he should have had a better handle on his sources,” Wright said. “What he said he shouldn’t have said and he knows it.”

Bader issued another statement on his blog Thursday saying he wanted to “sincerely apologize” to Lawton.

Lawton was the only prominent Democratic candidate for governor before dropping out of the race Monday citing “very personal reasons.” She has refused to elaborate, but she has denied a bevy of rumors, including that she was ill, that her fundraising was lagging and that she was pushed out by the White House.

Lawton said Thursday she was not considering legal action against the station over Bader’s claims.

“I want this story about me to go away and it’s time for the Green Bay community to pick up the threads of this and decide how to restore a respectful image,” she said. “It’s at great expense to them that this happened. If I were an advertiser, I wouldn’t get near to them. If I were a community leader, I would be calling them.”

The station solicited listener feedback on the situation and Wright said more people are supportive of Bader returning to the air than against it.

Lawton’s departure from the race leaves the Democratic Party with no major announced candidate, although Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett is still deciding.

Republicans running include Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann.