Media >>

• Best TV-News Anchor
  Dan Gray
  Sure, KSDK's Karen Foss is the perennial readers' choice, but what about her sidekick on the 5 and 10 o'clock news? Can't he get any respect? More than anything, Dan Gray is a solid presence on the dial, delivering the news with the right amount of seriousness and style. And in a television... More >>
• Best TV-Sports Anchor
  Mike Bush
  Whether it's because of his easy demeanor, his longevity or his lack of pretense, Mike Bush of Channel 5 is hard to knock. A Chicago native and a graduate of the University of Arizona, the 43-year-old Bush has been in town for 15 years, after smaller-market stops in Tucson, New Orleans and... More >>
• Best TV Weathercaster
  Dave Murray
  The climatically obsessed no doubt would love a precise gauge of TV weathercasters' prophetic abilities. Just how outrageously far off the mark were those highs and lows? How frequently did the sun brightly shine when torrents were promised? How many inches of snow actually fell (and fell and... More >>
• Best Locally Produced National TV Program
  Breaking Bread with Father Dominic
  So you switch on the TV and there's some guy in a monk's habit and Converse high-tops pontificating about bagels. What's not to like? With some three-quarters of the nationwide PBS network now carrying the recipes and gentle musings of baker/friar Father Dominic, local affiliate KETC (Channel... More >>
• Best Locally Produced TV Program
  Retrovision
  So you're lounging on the futon, flipping channels on your cable-free TV, waiting for the commercials between 3rd Rock and M*A*S*H to run their course, when you stumble across Luther Campbell leering and lisping his way through his booty-bass magnum opus "It's Your Birthday" on Channel 58. What... More >>
• Best Goofy TV Commercial
  Becky's Carpet & Tile Superstore
  If you grew up watching those hokey ads for the Slyman Brothers, Steve Mizerany or even those Kings of Credit at Schweig-Engel, you'll recognize Becky "Queen of Carpet" Rothman as a worthy heir to a long St. Louis tradition of goofball television spots. There she is, on late-night TV, in a... More >>
• Best Mystery
  Where's Wanda?
  OK, where's Wanda? Has anyone checked under Becky's carpet? For years, the carpet-selling team of Becky and Wanda pitched their rugs in late-night commercials that looked great between Jerry Springer segments. Those magic wands, the inexplicable queen motif, the flying carpet that rose higher... More >>
• Best Diction in a Used-Car Commercial
  Dave Sinclair
  Let's face it -- most car dealers have the orating skills of Frankenstein's monster (if you can imagine it hailing from Missouri). But for some reason, when the big wheel does the commercial, cars roll off the lot faster than the words roll off his particular tongue. Dave Sinclair was born with... More >>
• Best Radio Station
  KDHX-FM
  Quick -- name another radio station in St. Louis that plays Sleater-Kinney, Burning Spear, Emmylou Harris and the Mediaeval Baebes. Or Townes Van Zandt, Susana Baca, James Brown and Muddy Waters. You can't. That's because KDHX (88.1 FM) stands alone in having the most eclectic playlist on the... More >>
• Best Radio-Music Programming
  KDHX-FM
  In the past year, KDHX has continued its ascendence as one of the best community-radio stations in the country, expanding its palette to encompass not just folk, blues and country but the more youthful fare of punk, pop, acid jazz, psychedelia and electronic music. That it has no competition in... More >>
• Best Meteorologist (1 Comment)
  Ben Abell
  We called Ben Abell last spring, back when it looked like the region was in for a severe drought, and all that we love about the KWMU (90.7 FM) meteorologist came to the fore. Not only does he serve as the reason to get out of bed in the morning -- listen to Abell's forecast, then it's time to... More >>
• Best Radio-News Programming
  KMOX-AM
  The sad thing about this category is that it goes to KMOX (1120 AM) by default. The worse news is that the outlook for real, live news reporters working for radio stations interested in reporting real, live news is dim, very dim. As more and more radio stations abandon any pretense of... More >>
• Best Radio Program
  Doug Morgan's The Underworld
  KDHX-FM is the very model of innovative radio programming. They play everything from bluegrass to hip-hop to two hours of a cappella on Sunday mornings. (Well, almost everything: They don't have a brutal noise show, but noiseheads never get representation. Our exclusion is our badge of honor.)... More >>
• Best Eclectic Radio Program
  The Pop Life
  On any given Wednesday afternoon, from noon-2 p.m., Anton Stropus plumbs the deep virtues of musical unpredictability. His KDHX-FM program -- often cheering, always bracing -- is a fantasy of escape from the genre-terrorized world of mainstream radio where pop music has been reduced to the... More >>
• Best DJ-Mix Radio Program (1 Comment)
  DJ Kaos
  The little oases within the rotten commercial-radio system, a system in which programmers rely on national charts and consultants to dictate their playlists, are the heavenly mix shows that arrive almost nightly on The Beat (100.3 FM) (whose new competitor, Q95, just debuted its own mix shows).... More >>
• Best Radio Personality
  Frank O. Pinion
  Best, funniest -- it's all the same. Need a stress-buster on the way home from work? Try Frank O. Pinion's "large morning show in the afternoon," weekdays on KTRS (550 AM). If you see folks in their cars between 2 and 6:30 p.m. laughing hysterically for no apparent reason, they're probably... More >>
• Best Radio Talk-Show Host
  Charles Jaco
  This is obvious, but it bears repeating. When it comes to day-to-day, what's-happening hard news and issue dissection on local radio, Charles Jaco is it. Most other hosts on local radio can stumble over a good topic or worthy guests now and then, but Jaco is consistent in his effort and his aim.... More >>
• Best Radio Sports-Talk Host
  Frank Cusumano
  Frank Cusumano isn't as well known as some other hosts in town, but he's developed a unique style that makes him stand out in the crowd. Cusamano asks simple, quick questions and demands quick answers. He'll sometimes deal with a complex answer that takes some time, but he really likes to keep... More >>
• Best Sports Announcer Who's a Former Major-Leaguer
  Mike Shannon
  A lot of people spend a lot of time taking Mike Shannon to task because he's not the smoothest talker in the biz; yeah, his grammar and syntax might earn him a low mark in Sister Cecilia's freshman language-arts class, but if you get past that and listen to what Shannon has to say about the game... More >>
• Best Radio Voice
  Bob Hamilton
  He's our own Don Pardo, the celebrated NBC staff announcer known for his work on the original Jeopardy! and Saturday Night Live. His delivery is so distinctive, his tone, pitch and inflection so musical and familiar, that each day's account of the passing parade sounds eerily like any day's... More >>
• Best Web-Interface Design Staff
  Chameleon Creative
  The world is an ever-changing, quickly paced collective of sentient receivers and reciprocating senders. Chameleon Creative (www.c-creative.com) not only understands this interactive exchange, they thrive on it. Since 1999, they have won three NJAADC awards, for poster design, interactive design... More >>
• Best Defunct-Newspaper Morgue
  Globe-Democrat Files at the Mercantile Library
  The key to understanding the events of the present can often be found contained in little envelopes stored in the basement of the library on the University of Missouri-St. Louis campus. The Mercantile Library moved to the university two years ago, after the private institution was purchased by... More >>
• Best Cool Nicknames in a Local Periodical
  Evening Whirl
  It's only fitting that the Evening Whirl, "a crime-fighting publication since 1938" and the most colorful newsrag in the metro area, gives almost every detective, prosecutor or perpetrator who appears in its pages some colorful handle. In a story about the sentencing of Loveless "Stupid Loc"... More >>
• Best Newspaper Columnist
  D.J. Wilson
  Greg Freeman? Yawn. Columns about his cats and his son's first year in college were stale the first time he wrote them. Bill McClellan? Hasn't broken a sweat in years. Jerry Berger? Used to be interesting, before his ramblings devolved to the point of columns that contain nothing but tidbits on... More >>
• Best St. Louis Cheerleader
  Greg Freeman
  Lots of folks love St. Louis, but is there anybody who conveys his passion for his hometown to so many people and to so many places? It's not enough that he has a column in the biggest fishwrap in town; he also hosts talking-head programs on local public radio (St. Louis on the Air) and on... More >>
• Best St. Louis Post-Dispatch Reporter
  John McGuire
  As the story goes, back when the Post was changing from an afternoon to a morning paper, several writers were talking about how their lives were going to be altered by the new deadlines when John McGuire piped up: "Well, it won't bother me. My deadline's the same -- April, July, October ..." Not... More >>
• Best Sportswriter
  Bernie Miklasz, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
  Reading time: less than one minute. When it comes to sports in St. Louis, the one guy who seems to have his finger on the pulse of things is Bernie Miklasz. As chief sports columnist for the Post-Dispatch, that's his job, of course. But coming up with a fresh, frank and sometimes controversial... More >>