Sunday, July 4, 1999 | 10:14 a.m.
Dennis Prager isn't afraid to say what people don't want to hear.
Like the time a 38-year-old single woman called his Los Angeles-based radio talk show for advice about having a child. She had a good career, was making a good living and considered herself "an upstanding citizen," but had yet to meet "the right man" and -- fearing her biological clock was running out -- was contemplating parenthood alone.
Liberated women do it all the time. Actresses Rosie O'Donnell and Jodie Foster, in fact, made headlines for choosing single mommyhood.
Prager told her no. It killed him to say it; a parent himself, he completely understood her desire -- and the hurt in her voice when she hung up seconds later.
His opinion, however, was not based on the woman's needs -- it was on a child's rights. "To start them out not having both parents is not fair. It's selfish," he told the woman before their conversation abruptly ended. "It's understandably selfish. I cry for you, but it's selfish."
"So is it better to marry badly so that my child can have a father?" she asked him.
"No," Prager responded. "It is better to understand that we can't have everything."
Agree with him or not, Prager's not in radio to make friends. Or any enemies, for that matter.
Rather, it's intellect he's after: Prager wants his listeners to think.
And, beginning Monday, Las Vegas will become a part of that listening pool when KNUU 970-AM ("K-News") picks up Prager's morality-based, syndicated live talk show from 9-10 a.m. as part of its weekday lineup.
Prager, 50, will still be broadcasting from Los Angeles. His time slot here will take up the first hour of what had been Don McDonald's three-hour financial program. McDonald's program has been scaled back to two hours to fit in Prager, and will begin at 10 a.m.
A theologian and philosopher, Prager's 17 years on the air have seen him question everything from idealism to extremism. Topics have ranged from the anti-tobacco crusade to whether a good man can go to a strip show.
Callers sharing their views have included celebrities such as Jacqueline Bisset, Cher and Tommy Lasorda -- as listeners, not guests.
"I call it a slow burn. It's thinking man's radio, which isn't being done here in Las Vegas," said Andy Vierra, KNUU programming director.
Unlike the shock-driven "Hot Talk" or the politically conservative messages that have made Rush Limbaugh a household name, Vierra said Prager appeals to listeners because he can get into listeners' minds by morally exploring real-life issues.
Interestingly, KNUU has received e-mail and telephone requests from locals hoping to pick up Prager's show here in the valley. Many, Vierra said, were transplants from Southern California, where Prager has a large following.
"It's not a show where you call in and get beat up by the host, and there's not a lot of yelling and screaming going on," Vierra said. "Dennis' program is not about right vs. left, politically. It's about right vs. wrong."
The path to talk shows
Prager is religious, believes in God and just revenge, wants good to conquer evil, and describes himself as "a highly passionate moderate."
He considers his air time a vehicle to reach the ears of people whose eyes haven't yet seen his four books, newsletters or short-lived television show that aired from 1994-95.
Prager doesn't preach, he says, and not every show is morally imbued. "Sometimes I am more interested in clarity than anything else.
"I don't even care if people agree with me. I only care if they will think more clearly. I don't even care if they establish an opinion. I just want people to wrestle with ideas, and to think."
The introduction to his 1995 book, "Think a Second Time," explains his motivation:
"Most of us form opinions about life's great issues at a young age and retain them forever. The reasons are not hard to discern: It isn't comfortable to think through every issue; serious thought is as strenuous as serious exercise, and as we age, most of us become preoccupied with other matters. ... This is sad, because unclear thinking is a major source of social and personal problems."
It's a curious need, to get the world to think. Few can see past their own wants, let alone tasking themselves with such a seemingly noble quest.
"I aspire to wisdom, and I have done so from a very early age, which is very atypical of people" Prager said. "I don't know if I was born old, but my interests were always mature. I gravitated to serious subjects and believed from a very early age that I didn't have an infinite amount of time. I knew I would die one day, whereas youth know intellectually they'll die but it's not in their consciousness. I never felt that."
He learned as much as he could -- about language, religion, history. His greatest concern, though, was good and evil.
"It always has been -- why good people suffer, in terms of natural suffering like disease and being hurt by other people," Prager said. "That passion to fight evil, almost in a naive way, of tilting against windmills has always animated me."
He led a campaign against cheating on tests in high school, and later was stunned when his peers elected him senior class president.
"I learned at 18 that you could in fact take moral positions and not be 'holier than thou.' That was a very big lesson for me."
After Yeshiva of Flatbush High School in Brooklyn, he attended Brooklyn College in New York, the University of Leeds in England and pursued graduate studies in international relations at Columbia University. Additionally, he holds an honorary doctorate of laws degree from Pepperdine University.
Learning gave way to an all-consuming passion to teach.
Prager made a living through lecturing worldwide and writing books before he ever hit the airwaves. His topics have always been morally based; he's spoken in Las Vegas several times at the Jewish community's invitation.
"It has always been essential to me to make a living independent of radio so that I never have to say things I don't believe in order to keep my job," Prager said.
In radio, though, where ratings make or break a show, it's possible to gain respect and not listeners. Especially given Prager's direct competition -- blockbusters Limbaugh and Dr. Laura Schlessinger.
Gaining ground
According to MediaAmerica Inc., which markets Prager's show, Prager's ratings jumped last fall when he moved from an afternoon time slot to his current 9 a.m.-noon weekday block. His greatest gain was with women ages 25-54.
"Men like me because I'm a man's man. I know men very well. On the other hand, I think I have a particularly large audience among young mothers. I am very interested in helping them raise their kids."
A father of three -- a 23-year-old stepdaughter and two sons, ages 16 and 6 -- Prager begs parents not to let their children watch television. He's not for throwing out the set, but rather the programs.
"The media has had a terribly coarsening affect on America, especially TV," he says. His alternative: videos.
"You can have your cake and eat it -- they get to watch the box, but you get to control it. The longer you protect their innocence, the better. Television robs innocence. If the show doesn't do it, the commercials will."
Prager's national TV show reached 80 percent of America on 156 stations. He said a major TV syndicator asked him to do it, telling him they wanted "to do something good on television."
Of the 100-plus shows he recorded in a year, one got good ratings: "Should a woman wear sexy lingerie for her husband?" Viewers tuned in, he said, not for the intelligent conversation with a female psychologist and lingerie executive, but for six minutes of scantily clad models.
"Between the eye and the ear -- our two primary senses for receiving information -- the eye is far more superficial," Prager said.
Prager is selective about his radio topics. He never talked about the O.J. Simpson trial when it was in the courtroom, but devoted a great deal of time to the verdict -- why blacks and whites saw the outcome so differently.
Details of President Clinton's relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky didn't interest him. Whether a wife should leave when a husband strays did, and if lying to 250 million people is worse than lying to a spouse.
Having Las Vegas listeners, he says, won't change his format.
"My experiences in Las Vegas have been with the human much more than the gaming side, so to me, my picture of Las Vegas is not the Strip. My picture is a lot of people leading quite normal lives in the fastest growing city in America."
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