WGNU: from scoop to nuts.

The organ played "What's New" at Lupton Chapel as people paid their respects to the late Chuck Norman, venerable St. Louis radio personality and owner of WGNU. There was a palpable realization that his passing represented the end of an era for St. Louis radio. Norman left a legacy at WGNU--a legacy of controversy and a forum for voices not often heard on homogenized, monopoly-owned radio.

Many well- and lesser-known broadcasters attended his funeral. Onion Horton was there, as was Sylvia--she once had an afternoon German language show in St. Louis and referred to listeners as "Schatzie."

Listeners tuning to 920 AM can hear everyone from "Liberal and Loving It" Lizz Brown to "Jew Watch" host "Couch Potato" Frank Weltner. Though jazz classic "What's New" was a WGNU standard in 1960, listeners who tune into 2004's WGNU are more likely to hear a few voices who make chunky junkie Rush Limbaugh seem tame.

Across the Dial

To quote the old Central Hardware slogan, WGNU has everything "from scoop to nuts." Many of the 40 current talk show hosts buy time on the station, which allows for programs stretching the spectrum of ideology. Lizz Brown anchors the left, and the "Right at Night" boys Gordon Baum and Earl Holt III have a good hold on the conservative end of the dial at WGNU.

Brown has the highest ratings on the station, which routinely fails to crack the Top 20 Arbitron ratings for the St. Louis market. Brown has given voice to "the Community" and has focused concern on the privatization of the St. Louis public schools. She has scooped local media with her inside connections more than once, and her program brings advertising revenue to the station.

Several of the more right-wing hosts fall beneath the radar of St. Louis media but garner increased international attention from two very different groups--people who promote "white power" and people who are concerned about the proliferation of hate speech on the web.

Holt (along with John Ashcroft, Trent Lott and Haley Barbour) is linked with the "Council of Conservative Citizens." In the 1970s he was associated with the "Citizens' Council"--formerly the "White Citizens' Council'--and briefly served on the St. Louis Board of Education--at that time nearly as newsworthy and notorious as the current board.

According to a November 2003 Riverfront Times article by Mike Seely, Holt revealed his true colors on Larry Handlin's "Arch Pundit" web log on Nov. 14. An admittedly liquored-up Holt spouted out a long list of profane references which ends with this wish: "I honestly pray to God that some n----r fucks, kills and eats you and everyone else you love!'--and a postscript: "I dare you to print the email verbatim." Handlin did and so did the RFT, letting one of the cats out of WGNU's bag.

Gordon Baum also has ties to the "Council of Conservative Citizens," as does Frank Weltner, the station host known on air as "the Couch Potato." Couchie also has links to the National Alliance, a group that recently brought some unwanted publicity in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to a group of local Irish dancers who were surprised and embarrassed when they accepted an invitation to perform at an ethnic festival, unaware that the sponsor was a white supremacist organization.

Weltner gained international attention recently when The New York Times, Jerusalem Post and Reuters covered a story on the popular Google search engine's controversial link to Weltner's "Jew Watch" site. If a web surfer types in "Jew," Weltner's site pops up first among the top 10 sites. Google ranks results based on algorithms that search for frequency of key words or phrases, hits and for links. Google did not pull Weltner's site, and officials say Google will not censor sites except those that are illegal, such as child pornography sites.

"Jew Watch" lost its web-hosting service provider and was shut down for almost a week before being picked up by what the Anti-Defamation League refers to as a "well-known neo-Nazi site." According to a recent RFT article, Weltner has found a new host at Time Warner Telecom and says he has found back-up hosts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East.

Weltner quipped to the RFT's Ben Westhoff, "Jews have 95 percent of the media and I've got one little Web site. Now the same people who are always crying 'free speech' want to take me down. Do you think that's fair?"

"What's New" at WGNU

Norman, himself a mainstream conservative Republican, offered a rainbow of opinion on his station. Nick Kasoff of WGNU knows the station will stick to Norman's tradition of diverse offerings.

"The community of WGNU listeners can count on the station continuing in today's unique format for years to come," Kasoff said about the station's future.

"The staff is unanimous in its commitment to continue the station's eccentric legacy of free speech and the most diverse group of hosts to be found at any station in America. Equally important, Chuck Norman has provided the resources to ensure that it will be possible for this, his most important legacy, to continue."

A perusal of WGNU's weekday show schedule includes Lizz Brown's "Morning Wake-Up Call"; Bill Borst's "Partyline Drive Time Live" with Susan Smith-Harmon and Nick Kasoff; "New Black City" with Onion Horton and Mark Kasen; and Baum and Holt on the "Right at Night." The Green Party has signed on for the Saturday 9:30 p.m. slot to add a "Black & Green" element to the Power Hour with African-American Activist Zaki Baruti.

This diverse group may soon see some changes, though. Sources say Brown may be poised to find a national forum and Horton may move to Chicago in July.

Norman left the station's ownership and direction to WGNU employees. His legacy is rooted in providing air space (albeit with a limited audience) to a wide spectrum of voices. But WGNU's potential legacy--and even Norman's--could be tainted by the likes of Baum, Holt and Weltner and growing revelations of their thinly-disguised white supremacist hate-mongering. Time will tell which legacy will prevail.

RELATED ARTICLE: Future up in the air.

By Byron Clemens

Bill Borst, who hosts "Partyline Drive Time Live" and started with sports in 1984, has spent 20 years with WGNU and remembers Chuck Norman fondly.

"I will miss Chuck very much. His presence was always there because you knew he was listening to your show ... he usually was," Borst recalls. "I was also the station's trivia champion twice. I loved to sit and listen to Chuck read his esoteric questions that you would think he took from the deepest and darkest recesses of some remote library. It was quite a challenge to expose your ignorance, live on the air against some of his questions. I will really miss him."

Despite his respect for Norman and the station, he has questions as to how Norman's death and the federal government will play into the station's evolution.

"As for the future of the station, the federal government would have a better answer," he said. "As a part-timer, I am not certain how protected the seven or eight full-time heirs are. You would have to ask them. I know from personal experience that the taxman can take quite a bit. I was told by one of them that he was certain Chuck had thought of that. I tend to concur. Chuck was a sharp businessman, who has left the station in very capable hands."

Of life's certainties, it's taxes in the wake of death that Borst sees as a threat to the station.

"The only thing that will radically change the station is the tax consequences of (Norman's) death," Borst said, since estate taxes can take up to 60 percent of the station's estimated worth. "Otherwise I expect the station to remain the same, and I hope to stay in my 2-4 p.m. Wednesday slot as long as I can."

Byron Clemens is a St. Louis-based writer and a journalism teacher in the St. Louis public schools.