KVOA-4 gives Jonathan ‘Payday’ Paton an opportunity to diss on Tucson

Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

I rarely ever watch local television news programs. It consists mostly of the weather – twice, if not three times – sports, the Hollywood Minute(s), newswire headline national news reports, some personal interest story to demonstrate just how much the anchor person loves their local community (before they leave for a bigger television market), and of course, the "if it bleeds it leads" intro report: BREAKING NEWS! There's a shooting/auto accident/house fire/robbery, etc., etc. in progress and our eyewitness news reporter is on the scene to speculate without any factual information to report!

It gets worse when local television news tries to cover politics. If it's not Bud Foster or Sandy Rathbun reporting, don't waste your time in my opinion. Most local television political reporting is superficial at best, and inane at worst.

But I heard this radio promo from KVOA-4 this week for "Rio Nuevo? Or Rio Nada?" (no bias in the lede there), an alleged investigative report into Tucson's Rio Nuevo, so I decided to watch. I say alleged, because the "investigative" report consisted almost entirely of interviews with soon-to-be-ex-mayor Bob Walkup (R), and former Sen. Jonathan "Payday" Paton (R), the Viceroy of Tucson recently appointed to the Rio Nuevo Board by our colonial overlords to the north in the state of Maricopa.

I have posted previously that the Tea-Publican Arizona legislature took a subdivision of the City of Tucson government that was accountable to the Tucson City Council, i.e., the Rio Nuevo Board, and elevated the status of that board to a quasi-state subdivision that is appointed by and accountable only to the Tea-Publican leadership of the Arizona legislature. The Rio Nuevo Board has quasi-autonomous authority, and can be used as a vehicle by the Tea-Publican Arizona legislature to impose or dictate terms to the Tucson City Council on all matters related to Rio Nuevo.

In some respects, this is similar to the emergency financial manager under Michigan's "financial martial law" that I have posted about, only not quite as extreme (yet). The voters of Tucson are nevertheless disenfranchised and robbed of their right of self-determination under their Tucson City Charter when decisions about Rio Nuevo are no longer made by their democratically elected city council and mayor, but rather by unelected Viceroys accountable to no one but the Tea-Publican leadership of the Arizona legislature who appointed them. In this manner, our colonial overlords to the north in the state of Maricopa seek to subjugate the residents of the City of Tucson to their will.

This is the real story of Rio Nuevo (a cheap shot at this report), but KVOA-4 reporter John Overall instead framed his "investigative" report as a "he said vs. he said" interview between our indefatigable cheerleader for Tucson, soon-to-be-ex-mayor Bob Walkup, and "some say" and "critics say," i.e., "Jonathan 'Payday' Paton says," whom Overall unintentionally or otherwise elevates to the status of unelected de facto mayor of Tucson with his framing (it may appear to some viewers that the City of Tucson answers to "Payday" Paton). This is not "investigative" reporting, this is Tea-Publican political message framing. Mr. Overall should be embarrassed by this shoddy reporting, as should the management of KVOA-4.

I am posting the video segments below the fold because the KVOA-4 videos are extremely slow to load and will interfere with the main blog page otherwise. Update: I have added the URL's to the videos in case they do not load in your browser.

Part 1 – Monday http://www.kvoa.com/videoplayer/?video_id=5709&categories=15

Part 2 – Tuesday http://www.kvoa.com/videoplayer/?video_id=5725&categories=15 

Part 3 – Wednesday http://www.kvoa.com/videoplayer/?video_id=5732&categories=15