Phoenix News & Information

I was having a conversation the other day with a 6 year old.  So she and I were having a chat about an incident that happened to her at school.  It was one of those unfortunate days, you know the girls were acting mean and cliquish.  They didn’t want to play with her.  She first noticed it in class and then later, on the playground.  The girls were playing a game and refused to include her.  It hurt my heart just hearing this story.  So I asked how she dealt with this: Did she persist with the group to try to get in on the game?  Did she go to another group to try to make some new friends?  Did it make her cry?  Nope – none of those.  She looked at me square in the face and said the following (I am quoting here), “Care its fine.  They didn’t want to play with me so I went to find something to do on my own.”

Her answer was as calm and self assured as possible.  I could see the whole incident really didn’t bother her.  She wasn’t letting it boil inside.  She wasn’t talking behind their backs to other six year olds.  Surely she wouldn’t need therapy to deal with this rejection.

I couldn’t help but to think about some of the ridiculous antics that I have witnessed or sadly let bother me over the years.  The times I’ve heard about someone saying this or that, the necessity I have sometimes felt to analyze situations that really aren’t worth a second thought. 

Thankfully, I have grown to a point where I don’t let much bother me anymore.  I guess that’s the beauty of getting older and applying what you’ve learned over the years.  Where in my 20’s something would have really hurt my feelings (perhaps I was a little on the sensitive side), now in my 30’s I can laugh it off.  Don’t get me wrong, I still believe in being as kind as possible.  I just don’t get hurt if people don’t return the feeling.

The good thing is, if I have a moment of weakness where I read a blog that is potentially hurtful or listen to a critic, all I have to do is go upstairs.  That 6 year old with the amazing sense of self, just happens to be my step-daughter. 

3TV Anchors & Reporters, Carey Peña

The National Park Service will allow visitors free entry  during three weekends this summer to encourage Americans to visit  national parks such as the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and Rocky Mountain  National Park.
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Arizona, Cheap & Free!, Steve Bodinet activities, family, free, summer, trips

Looking for ways to cut your grocery bill in half? You can do it without ever using a coupon.
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Carey Peña, Cheap & Free!, Gary Harper cheap, groceries

We are so excited to announce a brand new adventure with Arizona Science Center!  Students interested in weather and how weather impacts our world are in for a treat.   They can now become a “Junior Forecaster!”  Each month, the 3TV Forecasters, Royal Norman, April Warnecke and Brittney Shipp will take Arizona students on a journey of weather facts and fun as part of the Junior Forecasters experience at Arizona Science Center.  The 45-minute adventure includes a presentation by the Forecasters, a weather movie on the IMAX screen, a tour of Arizona Science Center’s Forces of Nature Gallery and an official class picture with the 3TV Forecasters.  The Junior Forecaster Experience happens once a month on a first-come, first-serve basis, so sign up now!  Our next class dates are April 15 and May 6.  To register, call 602-716-2028 or for more information, visit azfamily.com keyword:  junior forecasters.

3TV Forecasters, April Warnecke

Thank God for St. Oprah! Thank God the patron saint of all that is good and righteous tonight set the world straight on the practice of polygamy. Those nice FLDS folks don’t force young girls into plural marriages! Willie Jessop said so! The women at the ranch said so!

And St. Oprah gave them her blessing!….more to come

Mike Watkiss

It was stunning to watch the great Oprah Winfrey and her celebrity correspondent Lisa Ling grovel at the feet of FLDS spokesman Willie Jessop on television a couple of weeks ago.

You would think after all my years in the biz, it wouldn’t surprise me what T.V. types will do or say just so they can make some hyperbolic claim about “exclusive access” and “exclusive interviews.”

Judging by Winfrey and Ling’s fawning and sycophantic demeanors, you would have thought Willie Jessop was some sort of Nelson Mandela as he was talking about the “persecution” of his people.

Give me a freakin’ break!

I have always thought that to report on this story accurately, you have to know it’s history and based on their recent broadcast, it’s pretty clear Ms. Winfrey, Ms. Ling and their army of young producers don’t have a clue.

Even worse, on the very powerful platform of Winfrey’s show, they allowed FLDS apologists, people who have elevated the practices of lying and deceiving to the level of sacred art forms, to present a staged and fanciful image of FLDS life that flies in the face of well-documented history and fact.

In so doing, Winfrey and company have now also helped significantly in what has become a very well-orchestrated media and court room campaign on the part of Warren Jeffs’ big-dollar lawyers to roll back all of the hard fought victories that have been achieved over the last decade in behalf of the women and children of polygamy.

Honestly I didn’t know whether to laugh or to throw a shoe at the t.v., when Ms. Ling stood among a handful of FLDS men doing what Ling of course strenuously hyped on t.v. as an “exclusive” interview, talking about underage marriages and letting those men go unchallenged as they talked as if the practice of underage marriage was just some sort of malicious and untrue gossip aimed at their culture–some groundless and scurrilous insinuation.

Ms. Ling if you knew anything about the FLDS faithful, you’d know that they fled to that isolated gulog down in Texas where you were granted your “exclusive access” because, after fifty years of neglect and indifference, the states of Arizona and Utah finally stepped up and began busting those very same polygamous men and throwing them in jail because of forced underage marriages.

Their prophet and still undisputed leader, Warren Jeffs, is behind bars because of forced underage marriages.

Not gossip–not innuendo–adjudicated, documented fact!

And what did the big bad Texas Rangers find on the Yearning for Zion compound when they raided it last year? Photos of the notorious 52-year-old Mr. Jeffs, a guy who already has well over 100 wives, snuggling and kissing a 12-year-old girl who he had just made his newest plural bride.

And for you, Ms. Ling, to allow those lying bastards to stand there and pull their “Oh-schucks-we-don’t-really-do-that-kind-of-stuff” routine is beyond irresponsible.

For well over a decade, a handful of very courageous people have been in the trenches fighting a difficult and dangerous human rights revolution in behalf of the women and children of this repressive, abusive polygamous sect. Your simple-minded coverage and your zeal for “exclusives” and ratings have set that back. Mike Watkiss

Mike Watkiss

I have a lot of respect for Oprah Winfrey. She’s used her power to do a lot of good in the world.
But when it comes to her recent coverage of polygamy and the FLDS community, she and her celebrity correspondent Lisa Ling have been used like a couple of garden tools.

Arizona, Mike Watkiss

Once upon a time as I sat in a tiny jail cell with convicted serial killer Richard Ramirez, the man known as the Night Stalker looked me dead in the eye and said: “We’re all evil.”
This face off with Ramirez took place in the early ’90’s. Since then Richard has been a resident on California’s death row.
But now it seem, Richard is back.

Recently I got a message from some young woman working for lawyers representing Ramirez. The Night Stalker is apparently down to his finally appeal….more to come

3TV Anchors & Reporters, Mike Watkiss

One of the first blogs I ever wrote was entitled “….so you want to make good t.v?”
It was about a man who I greatly admire. His name is John Schultz.
As all of us middle-age journos struggle to survive and redefine ourselves in the crazy world of the “New Media,” I look for inspiration in the stories of guys like John Schultz, a guy who helped create television news in the first place.
John Schultz was a young film editor at CBS in the early days of network news and it was there that John had the opportunity to work with the legendary Edward R. Murrow…..more to come

3TV Anchors & Reporters, Mike Watkiss

I was in Denver covering the trial of Oklahoma City bomber and mass killer Timothy McVeigh when I got the phone call from my mom.
Rarely an alarmist, she told me very matter-of-factly that I probably ought to get on a plane home to Salt Lake City as quickly as I could.
My dad was dying.

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3TV Anchors & Reporters, Mike Watkiss

Oprah Winfrey is in bed with polygamous men–cowardly politicians in Mohave County Arizona have voted to close the Colorado City Justice Center–and Warren Jeffs’ scum-bag lawyers are scratching and clawing to roll back every advancement made during the last decade to protect the women and children of polygamy.

And why should I be surprised? It’s a twisted world!
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3TV Anchors & Reporters, Mike Watkiss

I once read that Diane Sawyer’s career philosophy is as follows, “I don’t read my good press and I don’t read my bad press.”

See the thing is when you work on TV, there’s a lot of good. And when people tell you how much they love you, it’s easy to fall deeply in love with yourself. But then, there’s the bad. And when it’s bad, it is usually really bad.

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3TV Anchors & Reporters, Carey Peña

Paul Patrick wanted “to put a face on the victims.” That’s what his mom told me on Saturday afternoon.
Mary Patrick was sitting near a window of a room in St Joseph’s hospital. Her 48-year-old son Paul lay in a nearby ICU bed, tubes and bandages covering his body.
Paul had a very serious stroke on Friday morning.
“It probably didn’t do him much good to go to the trial every day,” Mary told me, “but he couldn’t stay away.”
For the last six months, Paul Patrick has spent most of his days on the fourth floor of Phoenix’s superior court, in the courtroom of Judge Roland Steinle, watching the trial of alleged serial killer, Dale Shawn Hausner.

On a hot summer’s night back in 2006, Paul Patrick was shot by a faceless coward in a passing car. Paul’s lower torso was torn apart by the shot gun blast.
Paul survived but his injuries were so severe that he lost most of his intestinal tract and ended up in a wheel chair.
The cold-blooded and totally unprovoked attack on Paul Patrick is just one of the nearly 90 crimes for which Dale Hausner was put on trail…..more to come…..mw

Arizona, Mike Watkiss

I’ve been called a lot of names during my career. Some have been nice. Others have not been so nice.
But the one reference that I think I like the best was written by an author named Lisa D. Campbell.
Ms. Campbell, once upon a time, wrote a very sympathetic biography of pop star Michael Jackson called “Michael Jackson: The King of Pop’s Darkest Hour.”
As you may have guessed, the book focuses on the time in the early ’90s when Michael Jackson first found himself facing a little boy’s allegations that he was a pedophile.
The book’s press release says it “covers this tragic time in Michael’s life, emphasizing the detractors and the supporters.”
As you also might have guessed, I did not fall into the “supporters” category in Ms. Campbell’s book.
No, working for the old tabloid T.V. show “A Current Affair”, I dogged Jacko all over the world during his first sex scandal, from Singapore to Switzerland, from London to Mexico City.
Obviously Ms. Campbell did not appreciate my work, leading her in her book to refer to me as a–quote–story hustler.
I know she might that as a slight, but I’ve got to confess, I’ve always loved the title, so much so that I’m thinking about asking my boss if I can have it printed under my name on my next batch of business cards as my official job description.
I think Lisa Campbell was right.
Story Hustler!
It certainly fits what I did back then and it probably still fits what I do today.

Tally Ho!

Arizona, Mike Watkiss

They say the hottest spot in hell is reserved for hypocrites–people who preach one thing and then do another.
I was reminded of that old adage during a recent trip back up to Colorado City.
Ever since that big raid down in Texas, every FLDS lawyer and spokesperson has been whining to any stupid reporter who will listen about religious persecution.
Please!
This coming from a people who have become experts at persecuting those who have left their group, have been thrown out of their group or disagree with their group.
Go ask some of the apostates (former FLDS members) how their are being treated in Colorado City these days.
Go ask a disabled man named Ron Cooke how he and his family are being treated by FLDS leaders in Colorado City.
Go ask the sweet young couple that recently tried to reopen Colorado City’s tiny zoo, only to have most of the animals that they had painstakingly collected stolen or killed. Ask that same young couple about the FLDS man who was recently arrested by a Mohave County sheriff’s deputy (Colorado City’s FLDS cops still can’t be trusted) for allegedly harassing them because of their efforts to improve the community by reopening the zoo.
Here’s a hint: the bully who was arrested is the brother of the FLDS spokesman who is now screaming the loudest and the most publicly about his people being persecuted.
….more to come……mw

Arizona, Mike Watkiss