HARD NEWS IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST FROM METRO PHOENIX
Republic telling employees about layoffs today: Will cut 7% of staff
By Nick R. Martin | July 2, 2009 | 2:32 PM | Comments
The state's largest newspaper, the Arizona Republic, plans to lay off 7 percent of its staff in the coming days as part of new round of cuts ordered by its parent company, Gannett, according to a source familiar with the discussions.
The source said executive editor Randy Lovely plans to break the bad news to staffers in a series of meetings today. Employees are expected to be told their fates individually by sometime next week.
The pink slips are the first handed out this year by the newspaper, one of the 10 largest in the nation by Sunday circulation. However, it will be at least the third time in 2009 the Republic has made painful cutbacks. During the first two, the newspaper forced employees to take at least a week off without pay.
Money & Media
In newspapers nationwide, financial columnists published others' work as their own
By Nick R. Martin | June 30, 2009 | 6:38 PM | Comments
It appears that financial advisers across the nation have copied whole or partial articles, which were originally penned by a trade group they belong to, and passed them off as original work in newspapers across the nation, including Arizona's recent Pultizer Prize-winning East Valley Tribune.
The issue was first raised today by Joe Strupp on the website of Editor & Publisher, a publication that covers the news industry. Strupp noticed that an advice article about financial planning that appeared two weeks ago in the Tribune was "almost identical, word for word," to an article that appeared six days later in the Huntsville Item newspaper in Texas. Both stories claimed to have different authors, each of which live in regions in which the papers are published.
At first, because of the timing, it looked as if the Texas writer had perhaps copied the Tribune's piece wholesale. But then E&P, along with other journalists like Ray Stern of the Phoenix New Times, began to notice the article had popped up all over the Internet under several different bylines, some of them on other newspaper websites.
Money & Media
On newsstands now: A look at why the Arizona Guardian matters to local media
By Nick R. Martin | June 27, 2009 | 7:39 PM | Comments
July issue of Phoenix magazine
Their audience is a select group of insiders at the state Capitol who need access to the highest-quality political intelligence to help them do their job better. It's a group whose population very likely totals in the hundreds to low-thousands, and let's face it, all or most people reading this aren't included in that count. I'm not either.
But even so, the work the Guardian is doing still matters to us, even if we can't afford access to it. In an economy where media across the nation is hobbled, this six-month-old website has found a way to make money while keeping an eye on some of the most powerful officials in the state. It's a nearly impossible task, but one that its founders take very seriously.
Criminal Justice
Civil rights group tells more about white supremacist bombing suspect
By Nick R. Martin | June 26, 2009 | 8:17 PM | Comments
The Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, a civil rights organization that tracks hate groups nationwide, published a detailed history on Friday of Dennis Mahon, one of two men arrested the day before on suspicion of bombing Scottdale's diversity office in 2004.
The history, based on the organization's decades of work tracking extremist groups, shows a long pattern of Mahon's involvement in racist organizations and tells what caused him some eight years ago to move to Arizona, where he called home for several years afterward.
"In 2001, Mahon announced his intention to move to Kingman, Ariz., where (Timothy) McVeigh lived while he plotted the Oklahoma City bombing," the center says. Citing news reports from the time, it continues: "Mahon liked Kingman because of the prevalence of anti-government types and wanted to develop links with white supremacist organizations in Phoenix."
Criminal Justice
Hate leader tells followers, 'Don't worry' about raids, arrests
By Nick R. Martin | June 25, 2009 | 11:52 PM | Comments
A white supremacist leader whose Indiana home was raided Thursday in connection with the 2004 bombing of Scottsdale's diversity offices told his followers not to worry about the raids or arrests of their fellow extremists because "there are more out there."
Tom Metzger, who runs a fringe group called the White Aryan Resistance, left a 7-minute message on a group hotline just hours the raids. He told followers that three of his home computers were seized, along with notebooks and address books. The seizure knocked out his ability to access the group's website or broadcast his regular Internet radio show, he said.
Criminal Justice
Were Scottsdale bombing suspects plotting more attacks?
By Nick R. Martin | June 25, 2009 | 7:47 PM | Comments
Federal court documents say the two men arrested today on suspicion of a 2004 Scottsdale bombing were teaching others how to conduct domestic terrorism as recently as this year, and one of them even instructed another person to attack power grids in Arizona or Texas in the event of their arrest.
The paperwork, made public this afternoon following the arrests of Dennis and Daniel Mahon in Illinois, says the brothers engaged in a conspiracy to "promote racial discord." They did so, it says, on behalf of an Indiana-based hate group called the White Aryan Resistance, or WAR, by attacking government and business institutions. It also says the men were teaching others "the tactics of terrorism" to help the cause.
Dennis Mahon, who has extensive ties to white supremacist and extremist groups, also sent numerous pieces of radical propaganda to someone in Wickenburg, whom the indictment did not name.
The paperwork raises serious questions about whether the duo and their associates planned to carry out other attacks similar to the bombing that seriously injured Scottsdale's diversity director, Don Logan.
Last year, long before the Mahon name was publicly connected to the Scottsdale crime, federal authorities said the bombing shared "commonalities" with others across the US and Canada. However, the documents released today do not point to other specific attacks.
Criminal Justice
Bombing suspects were caught, Scottsdale tells its employees
By Nick R. Martin | June 25, 2009 | 3:32 PM | Comments
Scottsdale city employees this afternoon got an email saying that two suspects had been arrested in the 2004 bombing of the city's diversity office. The text of the email is after the jump. For more information on the arrests of Dennis and Daniel Mahon, please see Heat City's exclusive report posted earlier today.
Criminal Justice
Exclusive: Arrests made in '04 bombing of Scottsdale diversity office
By Nick R. Martin | June 25, 2009 | 12:49 PM | Comments
Two brothers, one of them a neo-Nazi with ties to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, were arrested Thursday in a federal raid at their rural Illinois home on suspicion of carrying out the 2004 mail bombing of Scottsdale's diversity office, Heat City has learned.
Dennis Mahon, a longtime white supremacist organizer, and Daniel Mahon were taken into custody by federal agents outside of Rockford, Ill., after authorities were able to link to them to the bombing that injured Scottsdale's diversity director and two other city employees more than five years ago.
The men were charged by a federal grand jury with three counts related to the bombing and other conspiracies.
It was not immediately clear what evidence linked the two men to the attack. Last year, however, federal agents revealed that tiny bits of DNA had been recovered from the bomb fragments and were analyzed using a test that was previously unavailable to law enforcement.
While little is known about Daniel Mahon, his brother has extensivly documented ties to radical groups and extremists.
Criminal Justice
Exclusive: Assistant police chief in Mesa investigated for assault
By Nick R. Martin | June 19, 2009 | 11:58 PM | Comments
Mike Denney
Assistant Police Chief Mike Denney, who is also the department's chief of staff, was accused by a subordinate of hitting him in the groin with a water bottle during a confrontation last May, newly released documents show. The incident took place inside police headquarters the same day the agency announced it had collared a suspected serial strangler.
Denney, 57, was eventually cleared of criminal wrongdoing, as well as of breaking department rules, but not before 16 of the department's top brass and another police agency were dragged into the investigation. A department spokesman said on Friday neither Denney nor the subordinate, commander Fred Ruhland, were available to comment.
Money & Media
Veteran Phoenix television anchor Kent Dana out at Channel 5
By Nick R. Martin | June 17, 2009 | 5:11 PM | Comments
The dean of Phoenix television news, Kent Dana, will leave his post as lead anchor of the local CBS affiliate, KPHO-TV (Channel 5), later this year, says a new report on examiner.com. Dana has been a veteran of Valley television for more than 30 years but will hand the job over to fellow newsman Sean McLaughlin in late September or early October, reports journalist Scott Davis on the Examiner website.
Dana has been at KPHO since 2004 after he was asked to step down from his longtime post as head anchor of Phoenix's NBC affiliate, KPNX-TV (Channel 12), where his son, Joe Dana, still works as a reporter. KPHO's general manager told Davis this departure was a mutual decision. "He's leaving on terrific terms," said the station's GM, Ed Munson.
Got an exclusive story? Know a secret the whole state should know? Send in a tip. Anonymity can be granted.
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