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Radio remarks incense community

by Jill Burke
Monday, April 14, 2008

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- Derogatory remarks made last week by two local shock-jock DJs on KBFX 100.5 FM have sparked community outrage.

The station has since apologized but some question whether that will be enough to assuage the tension.

The remarks made during the Woody and Wilcox Show have been called racist and insensitive, particularly toward women of Native heritage.

Some are even calling for the radio station's managers to fire the shock jocks.

"I was stunned. I couldn't believe that somebody would say something like that. It is so degrading," listener Michelle Davis said.

During the April 9 "Morning Drive," DJs Woody and Wilcox apparently started bantering with a caller about how to tell whether someone is a true Alaskan.

The DJs included a personal spin on an old saying that many believe crossed a line.

"The one guy says, ‘Well, you are real Alaskan if you have made love to the Yukon River and you have peed in a Native woman,'" Davis recounted.

Backlash has been brewing since the words were uttered. Some even believe the segment was obscene and borderline illegal.

Denise Morris, president and CEO of the Alaska Native Justice Center, said she believes the comments bordered assault and were "hate talk."

"Derogatory statements made to Alaska Native women or any women should not be tolerated," she said. "It should not be acceptable."

The DJs comments seem to have struck a painful nerve, one that was audible in the halls of the Alaska Legislature.

Rep. Mary Nelson of Bethel called the remarks "abhorrent and indefensible," and asked her colleagues to join her in demanding an apology, punishment for the DJs and penalties from the Federal Communications Commission.

"I want to let people know how degrading these comments were and that I for one do not approve of our radio stations in Anchorage speaking in this way," she said.

Woody and Wilcox read a statement of apology on-air Monday. It's now posted on the station's website.

KBFX Market Manager Gary Donovan also provided a written apology on behalf of the radio station. In the apology, Donovan calls the comments "insensitive" and "inappropriate" and goes further to say that the "appropriate action to see that this does not happen again" has been taken.    

But the backlash may not be over.    

The Alaska Federation of Natives is now talking of hitting the station where it hurts by way of an advertising boycott.

Native officials call the remarks brutally offensive and "typical of Alaska's race relations."

Federation officials want immediate disciplinary action and point to the demise of nationally syndicated radio host Don Imus as a bellwether for this type of comment.

Imus was fired for his comments about the Rutgers University women's basketball team.

Native officials contend that Woody and Wilcox's remarks were "at least as bad."

The FCC has the power to fine the station's owners, the group that holds the broadcast license, over the comments. That decision would come from the FCC's national office in Washington, D.C.

Contact Jill Burke at jburke@ktuu.com