Pulitzers? Never heard of them.
Legends don’t take lunches … More vetoes, plz … And saved by the bureaucracy.
The Agenda team took a publisher’s lunch1 yesterday to attend the Arizona Media Association’s annual soiree, where Capitol scribe Howie Fischer and others were honored with an induction into the Arizona media “Hall of Fame.”
If you don’t know who Howie is, do you even read this newsletter?
Hardly a day goes by when we don’t highlight at least one of his articles in our “In Other News” section.
Howie is a machine — he has been covering state politics for longer than Hank has been alive, and he cranks out more articles in a day than the rest of the Capitol press corps combined.
He strikes fear into the hearts of politicians everywhere and serves as a keystone species in our local media ecosystem. His one-man2 wire, Capitol Media Services, has been filling the pages of smaller local newspapers across the state for decades.3
Without him, basically nobody outside of the Valley would have a clue what’s happening in state government.
We all owe him a debt of gratitude.
In traditional Howie style, he was an hour late to his own party because he was covering the governor’s press conference instead. (You can’t crank out as much news as Howie does while taking publisher’s lunches.)
Anyway, here’s the Howie “Hall of Fame” award video that the Arizona Media Association put together.
And while Howie’s contribution to the local news ecosystem is undeniable, it takes an army of local reporters to hold politicians accountable and keep the people informed.
This year’s Pulitzer Prizes will be announced a week from Monday.
But us foot soldiers in the local news army probably won’t be mentioned.
So as long as we’re celebrating Howie’s 50 years of news mayhem, let’s revive our so-far once-annual “Agendies” awards honoring the hardworking local reporters who we lean on to help fill out this daily dose of Arizona politics and government.
The Agendies, in case you somehow forgot, is Arizona’s most prestigious local journalism award, “based solely on our extremely subjective points of view as two journalists who read almost exclusively political news for work.”
This year's awards are roll-call style, with more than a dozen winners4 across three categories.
Ok. Let’s get to the awards!
The Howie Award
(For a Lifetime of Questionable Decisions)
We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: The Republic’s Mary Jo Pitzl is a state treasure. In an industry that is constantly trying to “buy out” its best and brightest (and replace them with unpaid interns), Mary Jo is not for sale. And unlike a lot of reporters, she has resisted being promoted into management, preferring to spend her time on the ground with the people making the decisions for our state, and those who have to live with those decisions.
12News’ Brahm Resnik is always two steps ahead of the rest of us. Besides his nightly news slots and online print stories, Brahm maintains one of the best social feeds in this state. Whenever we’re working on a juicy story, we’re looking over our shoulder to see if Brahm is about to beat us to the punch in a tweet.
KJZZ’s Amy Silverman and the Republic’s Ray Stern are Arizona’s journalistic power couple. Amy brings her impeccable taste and deep knowledge of Arizona’s arts, culture and political scenes to create the state’s best public affairs radio show, KJZZ’s “The Show.” And Ray is one of the rare political reporters who doesn’t subscribe to the press corps groupthink, allowing him to ferret out stories and angles that nobody else would cover.
Peter Aleshire is basically the Howie Fischer of rural Arizona. He’s a prolific multi-book author and lifelong journalist currently at the Payson Roundup. He crafts narratives so compelling that we actually want to read about rural zoning changes.5
Finally, the Scottsdale Progress’ Tom Scanlon writes some of the best ledes in the state. It’s an art. And Tom is a fine artist.
The Mid-Career Award
(For Not Going into PR Yet)
The Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy is out here doing the Lord’s work, covering right-wing extremism and the weird corners of the internet that nobody else wants to look at (not to mention his fixation with airplanes). It takes a lot of mental fortitude and a stiff spine to cover that beat, and he shows up every day to fight the good fight.
The Republic’s Stacey Barchenger is one of the state’s best beat reporters. As the journalist covering the Governor’s Office, she mercilessly investigated former Republican Gov. Doug Ducey. And when Democrat Katie Hobbs took over the job, she got the same treatment. Stacey is tough, but fair — and she’s the exact person you want keeping an eye on your executive tower.
You know that Votebeat’s Jen Fifield makes the list. Fifield was on the Maricopa County beat back when lawmakers were auditing the county’s 2020 election. And as far as we can tell, the only positive thing to come out of that clown show was Jen moving into elections full-time. If we’re ever confused about some intricate detail of some obscure election policy, we just Google it plus her name.
Finally, as co-host of “The Show,” KJZZ’s Lauren Gilger interviews everyone — from politicians and activists to artists and scientists. And she does it so expertly that you’d think each of those topics was her only beat. Gilger is one of the most versatile and low-key badass reporters in Arizona, and her tough-yet-impossible-not-to-like interview style creates some of the most compelling radio on the airwaves.
The Young Guns Award
(For Not Having the Common Sense to Get a Real Job in an Industry That Isn’t Collapsing)
There was a dark period when the once-venerable Phoenix New Times wasn’t worth reading anymore. But the dynamic duo of Morgan Fischer and TJ L'Heureux has turned that ship around. Their coverage is sharp, snarky and irreverent. And honestly, they may be the only competition in this space we occupy of golden era alt-weekly news vibe revival.
KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez graces our “In Other News” section at least once a week — whether it’s for a legislative scoop, an update from the Capitol or a longform radio feature.
Madeleine Parrish seems to be at all the school districts in the Valley at once. As the Republic’s K-12 reporter, she’s breaking news almost daily. And Kiera Riley delivers the education news with political overtones, not to mention courthouse scoops, from her perch as the education/courts reporter for the Arizona Capitol Times.
If you don’t click this button today, please go subscribe or donate to one of the news organizations listed above.
And tell ‘em you heard they won an Agendie!
Speaking of young guns — we’re hiring an intern! Or two!
We’ve always been a little hesitant to bring on a young apprentice because, well, it’s a lot of work with unpredictable returns on that time investment.
But we feel like we’ve finally sorted out the chaos of running the Agenda (it only took 43 months!), and we have the bandwidth to show the ropes of political reporting to the right candidate.
And thanks to a grant from the Arizona Media Association, we can even pay them!
We’ve got funds to host one business intern in Phoenix and one editorial intern in Tucson, either in the summer or the fall.
If you think you’d be a good fit, send an email introducing yourself to info@arizonaagenda.com.
The veto queen’s reign continues: Senate President Warren Petersen said Republicans are considering sending the Arizona ICE Act that Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed to voters’ 2026 ballots, per KJZZ’s Camryn Sanchez and Capitol scribe Howie Fischer. The measure would force local law enforcement to work with ICE to deport people, and Yavapai County Sheriff David Rhodes said at a press conference Monday that most county sheriffs already detain people wanted by federal immigration officials. Meanwhile, Hobbs added another veto to her growing list by shutting down Republican Rep. Michael Carbone’s HB2774 to waive regulations for nuclear reactors to power data centers in rural areas, the Arizona Mirror’s Jerod MacDonald-Evoy reports. And if you’re already losing track of all these vetoes, the Phoenix New Times’ TJ L'Heureux has a live list. We’re at 52 vetoes so far this legislative session.
The right to wake and bake: Arizona’s Hemp Industry Trade Association is suing Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes and the state’s 15 county attorneys to stop the April 24 implementation of Mayes’ recent decision to penalize retailers who sell intoxicating hemp products, the Republic’s Ray Stern reports. Unlicensed sellers are selling THC-infused food and drinks through a federal loophole that doesn’t explicitly prohibit hemp-derived THC, and the plaintiffs argue Mayes’ rule contradicts federal law. A Tempe cafe called the Wake N Bakery said it plans to keep selling its THC-infused edibles and vapes despite the AG’s order.
A monthly subscription to the Arizona Agenda costs less than a THC-infused club soda at Total Wine. Get high on some local political gossip instead!
Hobbs’ jobs and Payne’s probe: Hobbs announced a plan to give recently released inmates job training to cut back on their chances of being incarcerated again, Fischer writes.6 The plan is to use federal money for the program and hope it doesn’t disappear under the Trump administration. Republican Sen. Kevin Payne has his own prison reform plans and announced he’s “launching a probe” of the Corrections Department after three inmates were murdered at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Tucson earlier this month. Payne is asking Corrections Director Ryan Thornell for a detailed breakdown of the events.
State of avoidance: Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren will appear before the Navajo Nation Council for the first time since January to deliver his State of the Navajo Nation address today, two days after he ignored a subpoena from the council, the Arizona Mirror’s Shondiin Silversmith reports. Several delegates aren’t happy with Nygren’s conduct and cited frequent absences, one-sided decisions and alleged misrepresentations to federal partners and the council. Nygren made it clear he would leave if the council’s questions “derail productive discussion.”
It’s only April: Jay Feely, former Arizona Cardinals kicker, joined the race for Arizona's 5th Congressional District as current officeholder Congressman Andy Biggs departs for his 2026 gubernatorial run, per 12News’ Brahm Resnik. Feely has a former Donald Trump staffer on his campaign and publicized his golf outing with Trump in 2020. Meanwhile, Republican Elijah Norton announced his bid for state treasurer since the current Treasurer, Kimberly Yee, will hit her term limit next year. Norton owns a car insurance company, used to run finances for the state Republican Party and unsuccessfully challenged U.S. Rep. David Schweikert in the 2022 primary.
Once upon a time, cheating got you expelled. Now it gets you $5 million in seed funding and your own startup.
Check out tomorrow’s edition of the A.I. Agenda and see what life is like for job-seekers who know how to hustle with AI.
And you can pop over to today’s edition of the Education Agenda to learn about the big DEI policy deadline Arizona schools are contending with under the Trump administration and all the new state laws they’ll be dealing with this year.
As reporters, we know firsthand how frustrating bureaucracy can be.
But bureaucracy ended up saving the career of the executive director of Pima County’s transportation board.
Our sister newsletter, the Tucson Agenda, lays out the hilarious process of local elected officials trying to bring some accountability to an unelected office that handles billions of taxpayer dollars for regional infrastructure.
A publisher’s lunch, in news biz parlance, is a lunch that takes more than three hours.
Howie recently brought on a second hand: veteran Associated Press reporter Bob Christie.
Howie always says he had no choice but to start Capitol Media Services because he was fired from every other job he ever had — and that was a lot of jobs, from the Sierra Vista Herald to the Phoenix New Times.
If you’re a local reporter who didn’t win an Agendie this year, work harder! Just kidding. We started with a list of about 50 people but had to whittle it down to a manageable size. But don’t worry: You were on the original list.
Fun sidestory: Hank recently rented an Airbnb in Payson and found out Peter owned it. Small world!
Yes, this is the story Howie was late to his award acceptance for.
I’ve lived in Arizona 55 years and have been following Howie as long as I can remember. I get the Capitol Times and watch him on Arizona Horizon. He’s the best. In fact all the people deserve a round of applause. I’d like to see a deep dive into Dan Caldwell. Claims Arizona as his home state. Speaking of his firing by best bud Pete Hegseth from the Pentagon on Tucker Carlson’s show and blamed Susan Rice for the leak. Maybe he meant Conde.
Agree with Luige—Howie should’ve been put in the Hall of Fame years ago. When he decides to hang up his pen, we’ll be worse off.