Anchorage Daily News

Michelle Davis was surfing radio stations last Wednesday, stuck in traffic in a spring snow storm. When the dial hit the "Woody and Wilcox" morning show on KBFX 100.5-FM "The Fox," she couldn't believe what she heard.

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The Woody and Wilcox page on the Fox 100.5 Web site

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The morning drive-time hosts were bantering with a caller about whether getting into a fender-bender at Minnesota Drive and Raspberry Road made you a "real" Alaskan. What else made you a real Alaskan?

"Have you made love to the Yukon River and peed in a Native woman?" one of the men said, according to Davis, turning an off-color axiom inside out. She said she was stunned and disgusted.

As soon as she got to a phone, Davis, who is part Tlingit, called the station manager. Then she got on her computer and e-mailed a network of friends in the Alaska Native community. She wrote to news media, Native leaders and politicians. She complained to the FCC.

For a week, outrage built across the state. A state legislator spoke against it on the floor of the House of Representatives in Juneau, and it came up Tuesday night at the Anchorage Assembly meeting. School Superintendent Carol Comeau and Mayor Mark Begich publicly condemned it. The Alaska Federation of Natives issued a statement comparing the hosts to embattled shock jock Don Imus. Several people called on advertisers to cancel their contracts.

On Tuesday afternoon, KBFX owner Clear Channel Communications suspended Woody and Wilcox "indefinitely' and ordered them to attend sensitivity training.

"We are confident that what was said was an isolated incident, and it in no way reflects the views of KBFX station personnel," read a statement posted on the station's Web site.

Their salaries during the suspension will be donated to an "appropriate charity," the station's statement said.

POPULAR STATION FOR MEN

The Fox is the third most-popular morning drive-time radio show in Anchorage among men age 25-54, according to Arbitron ratings from fall 2007. The station plays metal-infused classic rock.

The station clearly targets men, though women call in on occasion.

The morning talk is laden with innuendo, crude humor and porn references. The station's Web site features a "Babe page" with galleries of scantily-clad models spraying each other with garden hoses and straddling guitars. The site's motto is "Surfing the Web with one free hand."

Gary Donovan, a local market manager with Clear Channel, wouldn't give Woody and Wilcox's first names, referring to them only by their radio handles.

The pair -- whose real names, according to the Associated Press, are Greg Wood and Chris Wilcox -- came to Alaska from San Diego, where they worked for KPLN-FM. Howard Stern's national program replaced them in 2004, according to a story in the Los Angeles Times.

Donovan said the station may be re-examining other things aside from the show, like its Web site. However, he doesn't consider Woody and Wilcox generally offensive.

"We've never viewed them as being shock jocks," he said. "This was out of character for them, which is what makes it frustrating."

The on-air comment last week hit a raw nerve in the Alaska Native community, which has lived for decades with high rates of abuse against Native women. A recent study of rapes handled by Alaska State Troopers, for example, said 61 percent were committed against Alaska Natives, the majority of whom were women.

Natives make up 13 percent of Alaska's overall population, according to the U.S. Census.

Many Native leaders said the comments were evidence of a racist attitude that promotes violence and dehumanizes Native women.

"It really touched on something that has been under the surface," Davis said.

When a version of this story was posted on the Daily News' Web site Tuesday afternoon, it quickly drew dozens of comments from readers. Two camps emerged: people criticizing the comments as offensive and racist, and those saying critics were overreacting and suggesting listeners change the channel if they're offended. By early evening, the story had drawn more than 130 comments. Editors eventually disabled the reader comments because of an increasing number of off-color posts.

VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN

Rep. Mary Nelson of Bethel said the comments upset her because they were part of a general lack of concern about the violence Alaska Native women face. She mentioned a string of slayings of Native women in 2000, some of which remain unsolved, that she felt the media ignored. Her fellow House members condemned the comment.

Julie Kitka, president of AFN, called the comments "brutally offensive."

"Some listeners were shocked; but many Natives, while sickened, thought it was all too typical of Alaska's race relations," Kitka said in a letter.

For Donovan, the uproar illuminates the fine line radio hosts must walk on a station like The Fox, wanting to be funny and edgy without going too far.

"Trust me, I'm living that balance," he said.

Terry Shroyer, a regular listener to the morning show, didn't hear the comment that caused the flap but he thought it was offensive. He said he rarely hears the duo cross the line. Usually he appreciates their humorous rundown of the morning news. Some of their "junior high bathroom humor" cracks him up.

"I'm a 22-year-old immature male," he said. "Toilet-flushing samples and stuff like that, it's right up my alley."

At least one of the station sponsors, Napa Auto Parts, is looking at its relationship to the station, according to Mark Pascuzzo, district manager. The automotive parts dealer's name is on the Web site as the sponsor of the "Babe Galleries."

"I didn't realize they were putting that sponsorship on the babe page," he said. "That's not our deal."

He said he planned to meet with the station.

Davis was pleased Tuesday when she heard the hosts had been suspended, although she wasn't opposed to them returning to the air in the future.

"I guess that's up to their station to decide how well they do," she said. "We can all do better and we can all learn."

Find Julia O'Malley online at adn.com/contact/jomalley or call 257-4591.

Shocking on-air moments

In July 1998, Los Angeles talk show host Tom Leykis and production company Westwood One were sued by Karen Carpenter of Juneau. She claimed she suffered post-traumatic stress from disparaging and sexual comments Leykis made about her on the air.

Shock radio host Howard Stern crossed wires with the FCC over indecent language beginning in the late '80s. In 2004, he moved to unregulated satellite radio to avoid repeated fines.

A Don Imus reference to the Rutgers University women's basketball team as 'nappy-headed hos' cost him his job in 2007. "Imus in the Morning" returned to the air in December on ABC Radio.

Compiled by Daily News librarian Sharon Palmisano

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