Today, I’m happy to unveil an idea I’ve been brainstorming for the past couple months. It’s called Beta Journalism, and I’m hoping it becomes a new way of thinking about one of the most-basic forms of media: the written story.
The idea is simple. It’s based on something technology innovators have been doing for about 40 years, ever since engineers at IBM came up with the concept back in the 1960s.
Don Stapley
The high-powered defense attorney for Don Stapley vowed today that his client will be “more than vindicated” as the latest criminal accusations against the embattled Maricopa County supervisor shake out.
Attorney Paul Charlton called the morning arrest of Stapley by county sheriff’s deputies a “political hit job” and “the kind of thing you would see in a third-world dictatorship.”
Today was the second time in less than year deputies have arrested Stapley. The first time was in December when sheriff’s investigators accused him of 118 crimes for leaving out key information from financial disclosure forms he is required to file as an elected official. After a number of ongoing legal problems, however, that case was dropped on Friday.
So Charlton said it was “suspicious” that Stapley, a Republican from Mesa, would be arrested by the sheriff’s office just three days after its first case was dropped.
The Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is accusing supervisor Don Stapley, a Republican from Mesa, of 100 new counts of fraud, which the office said are “unrelated” to the criminal charges dropped against him on Friday.
In a statement this afternoon, sheriff Joe Arpaio’s office revealed some details of the morning arrest of the embattled politician.
The statement said Stapley was arrested at about 9:30 a.m. in a county parking garage in downtown Phoenix. He “appeared agitated” and told deputies, “You’ve got to be kidding me,” as they moved in.
Don Stapley
Maricopa County Supervisor Don Stapley was arrested this morning by county sheriff’s deputies, just days after prosecutors dropped all charges against him in a criminal case that began last year.
The details of his arrest are unclear so far, but a Maricopa County Sheriff’s spokesman confirmed to Heat City at 10:07 a.m. that Stapley had been arrested again this morning. That spokesman, Detective Aaron Douglas, said in an email the office had “no further comment.”
The Mesa Republican was previously accused of leaving out key facts from the financial disclosure forms he is required to file as an elected official. The case had been investigated and built by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office and later given to Yavapai County after local prosecutors determined it would be a conflict of interest to try one of their own county supervisors.
On Friday, the special prosecutor hired by Yavapai County to handle the case threw out the charges against Stapley because of some legal hurdles. However, special prosecutor Melvin Bowers left open the possibility of refiling it.
Phoenix attorney David De Costa was arrested Friday on suspicion of smuggling drugs to prisoners.
Exclusive: If you follow the news very closely, the case might sound familiar: a Valley defense arrested on suspicion of smuggling drugs to prisoners.
The same thing happened less than a year ago to a Tempe lawyer who was caught smuggling for the Mexican Mafia.
The owner of the East Valley Tribune said Thursday it wants to cash out of the newspaper business in Phoenix, putting the scrappy Pulitzer winner and its sister papers up for sale at an undisclosed price.
Freedom Communications, the California-based media chain that owns the Tribune and numerous small papers in the state, is in the early stages of Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The company is trying to figure out what to do with its nearly-$1 billion debt, and part of the solution appears to be selling off some papers for hard cash.
The company on Thursday asked a federal judge overseeing the bankruptcy for permission to hire an outside firm to help unload its metro Phoenix newspapers.
A former Democratic candidate for sheriff and a local journalist are among those who have been interviewed in recent weeks as part of the state’s ongoing criminal investigation of last year’s Maricopa County sheriff’s race.
The Arizona Attorney General’s Office has been investigating several allies of Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the winner of that race, since at least March, according to reports by the Phoenix New Times and other news outlets.
At first, the probe appeared to be focused only on suspected illegal campaign contributions from deputies and a number of high-profile businessmen. But the recent interviews hint that the state could be taking a broader look at Arpaio’s campaign tactics.