COLUMBUS -- WSPD-AM afternoon drive host Brian Wilson said Friday he is first and foremost an entertainer willing to use the figurative "two-by-four up alongside the head" of his audience if it will get people to call his show.

He was asked to take part in a Law and Media seminar of attorneys and journalists hosted by the Ohio State Bar Association because of controversy generated from his January on-air remark interpreted by some as an insult to black students in Toledo Public Schools.

"But certainly, teaching little monkeys to peel bananas and so on and them learning to do it correctly on cue does not mean that they've learned everything except a funny parlor trick," Mr. Wilson said during his show. But as part of the seminar program entitled "Free Speech or a Chilling Effect: What Happens When a Talk Show Host Strikes a Nerve?", Mr. Wilson said his use of the word "monkeys" was not a racist remark.

"The point of this, in common parlance, rant was in a greater context of a discussion of the failure of TPS to deliver a quality product, that they were cranking out dysfunctional illiterates for a pretty good while despite millions and millions of dollars extorted by the teachers' unions," he said.

"The teachers were really teaching to the test," Mr. Wilson said. "They were teaching answers. They weren't teaching thinking. They weren't teaching objective analysis. They weren't teaching logic. They weren't teaching problem solving in the real world."

He blamed The Blade for manufacturing controversy by taking the quote out of context, then seeking reaction from people who hadn't heard it live. "It was not anything that I said," he said. "It's what the audience heard."

Mr. Wilson did compare Toledo Public Schools students to "little monkeys" in his broadcast and The Blade did not take his remarks out of context, said John Robinson Block, publisher and editor-in-chief of the newspaper.

"We stand behind our reporting and our reporter, Tom Troy," Mr. Block said. "We have a tape of the show and it reflects Mr. Wilson's clear statement about Toledo students."

Among those in the audience Friday was former Ohio Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Brown, who made it clear he wasn't buying Mr. Wilson's explanation.

"Having listened, and with your experience, background, education, and verbal skills, I'm convinced that you knew precisely what the impact would be by your use of a reference to little monkeys," the current Franklin County Municipal Court judge said.

"If you wanted to engage in a discussion about the deficiencies of Toledo Public Schools, use of that phrase got in the way of that communication," he said. "But you chose to use that reference and instead have a public discussion, perhaps generating more listeners, about free speech and use of the term and how people perceived it."

Mr. Wilson said he did not plan it that way.

"Certainly, there's a way to have a very brainiac discussion about all these things, but that's not commercial radio," he said. "As far as my analysis of the Toledo market is concerned, the two-by-four up alongside the head of the donkey to get his attention, that analogy is really quite apt when you look at that audience. I have never seen -- and I've said this in public, on air, and in print -- an accumulation of ignorance among a group of people centered in one geographical area until I came to Toledo. It's astounding, absolutely astounding.

"Will I tend toward the sensational for a lot of the things that I begin to say?" he asked. "Yeah, that would probably be a default. But did I sit there and conspire for days before I went on the air, that I was going to say this 'cause I knew it would get The Blade's panties in a wad? Hell no."

Mr. Wilson said he has been "begging" for an attorney to take his libel case against The Blade and repeatedly has "goaded" TPS Superintendent Jerome Pecko to follow through with a complaint before the Federal Communications Commission.

The district said Friday there will be no complaint. "After some meetings with management at Clear Channel, Dr. Pecko has decided not to proceed with the FCC filing," TPS spokesman Patty Mazur said.

The bar association program -- moderated by David M. Strukel, communications professor at the University of Toledo -- also touched on such controversies as MSNBC political pundit Mark Halperin's on-air expletive describing President Obama when he thought his comment would be bleeped, Janet Jackson's Super Bowl halftime "wardrobe malfunction," and country singer Hank Williams, Jr.'s recent on-air comments about Mr. Obama that prompted ESPN to drop his Monday Night Football theme.

The question of what constitutes "indecency" in broadcasting has been a moving political target since the beginning of commercial radio, said David Tucker, a UT associate professor in communication.

Mr. Wilson, who traveled from his home in Virginia -- where he originates his Toledo show -- to participate Friday, said it's his job to push the envelope, "to get your toenail, your toe, maybe your entire foot over the line to test the waters of the press … to get your name in the newspaper. … It gets you sued. It gets you suspended -- with pay, of course. But it also gets you audience.

"That's what I'm there for," he said. "Have mike, will travel. I am there to get that radio station the largest number of people listening for the time I'm on the air."

Mr. Wilson left the conference immediately after his presentation and was not available for questions.

Contact Jim Provance at: jprovance@theblade.com or 614-221-0495.

First Published October 15, 2011, 4:16 a.m.