A crowd "watches" the World Series covered by the Arizona Republican outside the Heard Building in 1921. In these pre-radio days, news wire services transmitted each at-bat and inning, which were placed on the scoreboard.
If you grew up in Phoenix in the 1960s and 1970s, the media landscape looked like this:
The Arizona Republic was the morning newspaper. The afternoon paper was The Phoenix Gazette. Although both were owned by the Pulliam family, their newsrooms competed fiercely. The Republic was the statewide newspaper while the Gazette focused on the city. Publisher Eugene C. Pulliam was known for his conservative views and occasional front-page editorials. Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Reg Manning's signature included a cactus. Well into the 1960s, news hawkers in green aprons shouted headlines from downtown sidewalks, ready to sell you a paper.
Surrounding towns had their newspapers, too. Among them, The Mesa Tribune, Tempe Daily News, Chandler Arizonan, and Scottsdale Daily Progress. The city gained an alternative weekly with New Times, founded in 1970 by a group of ASU students. Phoenix Magazine was started in the 1966 by the Welch family.
Television meant the local affiliates of the three networks: KOOL (CBS), KTAR (NBC) and KTVK (ABC). Phoenix had one independent station, KPHO, which was the home of Wallace and Ladmo. Radio ran from easy listening to top 40 (KRIZ, KRUX and KUPD). By the 1970s, newcomer KDKB played album-oriented rock with a hippie laid-back style (The staff is shown at the Mesa Southern Pacific depot in 1973, above right). Broadcast towers topped the Hotel Westward Ho and Greater Arizona Savings Building (Heard Building) downtown.
You knew personalities such as bola-tie-wearing Bill Close, the Walter Cronkite of Phoenix, on KOOL (promoted on the billboard, right). Mary Jo West became one of Phoenix's first female anchors in 1976, joining Close (a crusty guy who was not happy to work with a woman at first). In 1982, Close would be at the center of a famous hostage situation, where a gunman took over the studio and demanded to read a statement on the air. On KOY radio, Bill Heywood presided over the morning drive time, while Alan Chilcoat did afternoons and "sang the weather." Johnny McKinney at KUPD was one of the many popular rock DJs.
Overall, what would come to be called "media" was pretty bland in Phoenix of this era. There were exceptions, and not merely when New Times started to shake things up. The Republic and Gazette was capable of excellent investigative reporting and exposed land fraud and crooked pols, along with plenty of boosterism. Glendale Pontiac dealer, and future governor, Evan Mecham published a short-lived Evening American because he thought Pulliam was too liberal. But most Phoenicians felt a deep connection to these publishers and broadcasters.
What was most striking in retrospect, but taken for granted then, was that all these publications and stations were locally owned. For example, KOOL (along with KOLD in Tucson) was owned by Tom Chauncey, who started out as a page in the Hotel Adams. He bought KPHO radio in 1941 and befriended cowboy star Gene Autrey. The two went on to buy KOOL in the early 1950s.
KTVK was started by former U.S. Senator and governor Ernest McFarland and was owned by his family for years. Jonathan Marshall was publisher of the Scottsdale Daily Progress and a key member of the Scottsdale business leadership. Towering over all of these figures was "Old Man Pulliam."
II.
The first newspaper in Phoenix was the Salt River Valley Herald, founded as a weekly in 1878. Two years later — and moving counter to today's "branding" in the metropolitan area — it changed its name to the Phoenix Herald and went twice-weekly. In 1881, the Phoenix Gazette started its presses. The town's population was 2,453. The Arizona Gazette was published from 1895 to 1928.
The Arizona Republican began publishing in 1890. According to the Library of Congress, founding editors Charles. O. Ziegenfuss and Edwin S. Gill "began the daily as a partisan political organ to promote Lewis Wolfley, the territorial governor." Newspapering in the old West could be a dangerous undertaking, but there's no record of a Phoenix paper being burned down and its editor tarred and feathered. A bigger threat to Phoenix's three newspapers was the Panic of 1893.
The Republican gained a savior three years later when it was purchased by railroad and mining executive Frank Murphy. He hired former New York Times journalist Charles Randolph to be editor. The Republican installed the first linotype machine in the state. In 1901 the Phoenix Typographical Union 352 was established, Arizona's first labor union.
Even with Randolph's more professional journalism, the Republican was a supporter of its namesake party. That changed in 1912, as Arizona became a state, when it was bought by the legendary Dwight Heard, who owned the paper until his death in 1929. Heard was a progressive and made the newspaper more even-handed. He also began a tradition of it supporting public improvements for the city and state. The next owners, Charles Stauffer and Wesley Knorpp, changed its name from Republican to Republic and also bought the Gazette in 1930.
Meanwhile, in 1918, Phoenix gained the first of what would eventually be two African-American newspapers, the Phoenix Tribune. It lasted until 1931.
Radio revolutionized the media but arrived slowly in the less-populous Intermountain West. Phoenix sporting-goods store owner Earl Neilson won an experimental radio license in 1921. One of his first employees was a young Barry Goldwater, who swept floors among other things. Neilson's station became KFCB and, in 1929, KOY.
A future KOY announcer, Jack Williams, went on to become Phoenix mayor and Arizona governor. According to journalist and writer Jana Bommersbach, local radio news in Phoenix was born with coverage by Williams of the Winnie Ruth Judd "Trunk Murderess" case in the early 1930s on KOY.
Other stations followed, including KFAD. It was purchased by the dominant newspaper and became first KREP and then KTAR, its call letters standing for "Keep Taking the Arizona Republic."
KTAR broke the local-ownership model in 1944 when the Republic sold it to John Louis Sr. of Chicago. Still, as the Louis family bought more stations, it gathered them into Pacific & Southern Broadcasting, headquartered in Phoenix. In 1968, it would merge with billboard company Eller Outdoor Advertising to become Combined Communications, with Karl Eller as chief executive.
The first television station went on the air in 1949, KPHO. Before Wallace and Ladmo, it started the Lew King Ranger show. One of the announcers was a young Wayne Newton. It was followed by KTYL (soon KTAR) in 1953. By 1955, the TV firmament was set with KOOL and KTVK.
III.
Eugene Collins Pulliam was 57 years old when he purchased the Arizona Republic and the Phoenix Gazette in 1946. Two years earlier, he had bought the Indianapolis Star and was in the process of turning it into the largest of the city's dailies. But he was a newspaperman, not from "the business side." He had started as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Star and at age 23 had become editor of the newspaper in Atchison, Kan.
Pulliam forcefully used his print near-monopoly to advance his vision of the public good and political conservatism.
In the former, he joined the businessmen who were eager to see Phoenix grow after World War II. Their efforts included recruiting well-paying "clean industries," efficient city government including the Charter Movement, improvements to the city's infrastructure, annexation, and making Arizona State College in Tempe into a university.
In the latter, he was an early supporter of Barry Goldwater and Republicans in what had been a Democratic (but still conservative) state. Pulliam's conservatism was that of fellow Midwesterner Sen. Robert Taft: smaller government, suspicion of the New Deal and unions, but with a pragmatic streak and rejecting Taft's isolationist tendencies. Pulliam was a staunch anti-communist, as was his longtime top editor, Fritz Marquardt.
It is an open question of how much power "the Pulliam press" actually had in post-war Phoenix. The city was attracting large numbers of middle-class Anglos from the Midwest that already shared his larger political philosophy. Pulliam was a civic leader, but hardly the only one, and most shared a common vision of a "business friendly" low-rise city with minimal restrictions on individuals. At least on white people.
He was not always a doctrinaire Republican. For example, a young Bill Stephens was a Democratic representative in the Legislature in the early 1960s when he was summoned to see Pulliam. The publisher told him that his newspapers might support him for governor — someday. But first, Pulliam said, Stephens needed to get his law degree. Stephens followed the advice, going on to become a noted Phoenix lawyer. But he never sought the governorship. The right-wing Stay American Committee (SAC) found no support from Pulliam in its bid to win the City Council in 1962. Also, in 1964 Pulliam refused to endorse Goldwater for president.
Like Phoenix leaders of his generation, he failed to understand the damage being done to the city by nascent sprawl. Thus, as I have written at length elsewhere, he was absolutely right to mobilize the public against the Papago Freeway inner loop. That it was defeated in a 1973 vote was not because of the evil power of the Pulliam press, but the horrific destruction the freeway would bring. But he and other leaders opposed transit, much less growth boundaries. And they did not push to attach I-10 to the Maricopa Freeway at Durango, saving hundreds of irreplaceable historic houses.
IV.
When Pulliam died in 1975, it marked the beginning of the end of the old civic stewards. A year later, Don Bolles, one of the Republic's best investigative reporters was murdered with a car bomb in Midtown. People said, "They would never have dared do this if Old Man Pulliam were still alive." But the "they" was never adequately answered.
Investigative Reporters and Editors committed a team to dig into the killing. The resulting Arizona Report was not run by the Republic. New Times did run it. But the project was more about exposing the sleaze of Phoenix's underworld than nailing the Mister Bigs behind the Bolles murder. It's also important to remember that the Republic still had some fine investigative reporters, such as Al Sitter.
Indeed, the Republic and Gazette had strong, talented staffs and were capable of producing excellent work. It was a paternal company that took care of employees, even maintaining the R&G Ranch in the citrus groves of Arcadia for worker events and picnics. Through the 1990s, R&G journalists were still capable of crusading against corrupt or incompetent politicians in a way that is inconceivable now. In 1985 that came back to bite them when a targeted pol discovered publisher Duke "I tell Arizona what to think" Tulley had invented his past as an Air Force hero.
The newspapers became more pragmatic editorially. In the late 1980s, publisher Pat Murphy pushed for Phoenix to move beyond the population growth model to emphasizing quality and urban solutions. Unfortunately, the newspapers and the prevailing business interests, and even many voters, were no longer in sync. The city had grown too fast.
In 1986, the papers endorsed Burton Barr, the veteran state House leader and a mainstream Republican, for governor. He lost in the primary to Evan Mecham, a precursor of today's Kookocracy. Three years later, they campaigned for ValTrans, a visionary, rail-centric commuter system that would have prevented much of the worst sprawl. Voters turned it down.
The R&G held a commanding position in advertising and penetration. The closest this came to being undermined was when Cox Enterprises, publisher of such newspapers as the Atlanta Journal, Dayton Daily News and Austin American Statesman, bought the Mesa, Tempe, Chandler and eventually Scottsdale papers. The Mesa Tribune enjoyed a strong run under the late Max Jennings as executive editor in the 1980s. But Cox could not break the hold of the big dailies from Phoenix and sold to Thomsen Newspapers in 1996-97. The papers were consolidated and renamed the East Valley Tribune, then sold to Freedom Communications, publisher of the Orange County Register. The recession nearly killed the Tribune, even though it won a Pulitzer in 2009. A new buyer was found for what remained after savage cutbacks.
Another loss for the Pulliam press came in 1997, when the afternoon Gazette was closed. This was particularly short sighted: Imagine if the Gazette had become an online only newspaper, competing editorially against the Republic? But it was not to be. Meanwhile, media companies were becoming bigger and local ownership more rare.
At least the Republic and its parent company, Central Newspapers, kept faith with downtown and built a new building on Van Buren, a new headquarters for a multi-state newspaper company. In 2000, the company was sold to Gannett. Now, a long way from the weekly of 1890, the newspaper is part of Republic Media, which also includes Channel 12 and AzCentral, the state's most popular news Web site. Gannett sold the building sold in 2018, although the Republic continues to lease it.
Gallery — click on a photo for a larger image:
Contrast with the Republic and Gazette in the Heard Building on Central in 1939.
The Phoenix Gazette sports staff in the 1940s (Brad Hall collection).
The KOOL headquarters downtown in the 1960s, when the station was locally owned by Tom Chauncey.
In studio at KPHO. The year is 1943. (McCulloch Bros. Collection/ASU Archives).
The KPHO building in the 1950s, when it was Phoenix's only independent, non-network television station, as well as KPHO radio. I stopped by occasionally as a child hoping to see Wallace and Ladmo. I never did, but the producers would give me expired reels of advertisements and NASA Facts film (if I could have kept and preserved them, they'd be worth real money today).
Ladmo — Ladimir Kwiatkowski — started as a cameraman before becoming famous on the Wallace and Ladmo Show.
Wallace and Ladmo in 1968. Wallace was Bill Thompson — who turned his back on a rich mining family (they funded the Boyce Thompson Arboretum — to create the most innovative "children's" show in America.
Studios of KOY radio, Phoenix's first radio station, at Central and Roosevelt in the 1940s.
The Arizona Republic's front page on Jan. 1, 1958.
EPILOGUE: In 2019, GateHouse Media completed a $1.1 billion takeover of Gannett, keeping the latter's name. GateHouse was notorious for shabby journalism, making old Gannett look like the New York Times by comparison. An Arizona Republic newsroom staff that numbered 400 in 2007 was slashed to a fraction of that number. By the end of 2022, the combined companies employed 11,200 total, compared with 24,338 in 2018. Between the third quarter of 2018 and the same period of this past year, the Republic's circulation plummeted an astonishing 75% — 378,602 to 95,663.
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My book, A Brief History of Phoenix, is available to buy or order at your local independent bookstore, or from Amazon.
Read more Phoenix history in Rogue's Phoenix 101 archive.
I can find no mention of this on the web but there was a liberal alternative to the Republic circa 1962 called The Arizona Journal. It was published by Robert Morrison, a Democrat who had been the state attorney general from 1955 to 1960. In 1958, he ran for governor against Paul Fannin. The Republic ran a smear campaign against him, alleging a youthful bad check charge, and Fannin won easily. Morrison's post-political revenge was that newspaper, something Democrats had long yearned for. Unfortunately, it was understaffed and undercapitalized, lasting only about one year.
Mecham's motivation for starting The Evening American, which was an afternoon newspaper, came after the Republic/Gazette endorsed Carl Hayden in the 1962 US Senate race. Mecham was the GOP nominee having beaten the establishment candidate Stephen Shadegg in the primary. The Republic was not liberal in any sane person's mind. It was, however, pragmatic:. It knew the 85 year-old Hayden was crucial to the passage of the CAP. Mecham, a John Bircher in all but name, saw a conspiracy. He did get 45% of the votes against Hayden, which was stunning given Mecham's pygmy stature in Arizona political life.
Eugene Pulliam was ridiculed and hated fervently by Democrats. He was not merely conservative but hard-right by the standards of that era. Growing up, I recall everyone trying to come with a mocking name for his newspapers (the Repulsive! The Kazoo!). His editorial page seemed to relish fighting yesterday's battles as if western civilization itself were at stake. His son-in-law, Michael Padev, wrote columns extolling Generalissimo Franco, a preoccupaton that mystified most people under 70. I did find this little nugget online, which is suggestive of Pulliam's hardliner instincts: http://www.leagle.com/decision/197531124ArizApp287_1237.xml/PHOENIX%20NEWSPAPERS,%20INC.%20v.%20CHURCH
Pulliam was crusty and seldom benign but he oversaw Arizona civic life like the Grand Seigneur he thought should be running things. His freaky-right politics were more paleo-conservative than today's Randian fervor. Eventually, the Republic mellowed but only briefly before the Grim Reaper of the Internet began its mass extinction. Today, we can see politics in Arizona as informed mostly by the rage and grievances of old white people against their perceived loss of privileges. Arizona is utterly different but its politics has revived an eerie resemblance to yesterday's tinfoil obsessions. Everything old is new again.
Posted by: soleri | January 27, 2015 at 08:51 AM
Golly gee whiz...
Such a simpler time.
Nowadays it takes 900 million to choke the life out of Democracy.
Posted by: koreyel | January 27, 2015 at 09:30 AM
As a native Phoenician nearing 60, these retrospectives always make me sad for the present and future. And yet I continue reading them.
It's tempting, but wrong, to don rose colored glasses and wistfully yearn for the better days. But at least back then the area had a unique identity. Full of characters both good and evil, but home grown. Now, immigrants like McCain are what pass for leaders. Would it really be so hard to transplant Rose Mofford's brain into a 20-something's body?
Posted by: Guy | January 27, 2015 at 10:25 AM
I came across the word agitprop the other day. Agitprop:Political propaganda, disseminated through literature, drama, art, or music. Also usually associated with communism.
Your history of news papers and the inherent political persuasion of the publications is interesting.
The internet is fascinating.
Posted by: Suzanne | January 27, 2015 at 01:22 PM
About a week after I started delivering the Republic as a twelve year-old, my Dad told me that if I was going to throw it on peoples' porches, the least I could do was know what was in it.
It started a habit that's now lasted almost 60 years.
I'll never forget the four years that I got up at four every morning to peddle my bike and deliver it.
Posted by: BEARSENSE | January 27, 2015 at 04:58 PM
Phoenix was also the last stop on the way to the big time for many TV/radio people. Jonathan Brandmeier refined his act in the early 80s in the "Valley of the Loons."
Jon, I'm surprised you left out John Kolbe, who was Ev Mecham's worst nightmare, and Tom Fitzpatick, who was everyone's worst nightmare. Was there was any memory of them when you were at the Republic?
Posted by: media whore | January 29, 2015 at 11:36 AM
MW,
Of course there was. It was difficult to start naming the many stars and great writers without slighting a whole bunch. Where to cut it off? Thanks for mentioning these.
Posted by: Rogue Columnist | January 29, 2015 at 11:45 AM
You forget the ultimate democrat disaster- AzScam.
That did more to put a cap in the democratic party, and thus we have had 25 years of the republican party.
Big winner, http://www.azcentral.com/news/politics/articles/20140215ex-governor-hull-recalls-azscam.html
Yeah, but it really bagged the D party, and Fife used it to roll pretty hard at the next election, in spite of his own soon to be jailed troubles.
Now we start right off with Tobin stopping enforcement. Meh. Nice campaign payback, bayybe.
I could talk more, but I think I will just watch this stuff start turning sour.
The funny part is Ducey thinks he can be Prez in 6 years, but he doesn't get he is going to own the massive failures of state government, lock, stock, and barrel. And yet we can just cut it more, and expect it will work better!!!
Can blame J-no anymore, but the past administration will be good for some nice splats- and the leg is deluded.
Posted by: Concern Troll | January 30, 2015 at 10:00 PM
On the media landscape it's worth mentioning the Arizona Journal, which published briefly in the early '60s, and was a "liberal-progressive" alternative to the Pulliam papers and Ev Meacham's right-wing Evening American. Its publisher was Thane Read, a friend of my mother's.
Pulliam wasn't always a knee-jerk right-winger. I remember in 1968 the Republic didn't take sides between Nixon and Humphrey in the presidential election. "Just don't vote for George Wallace" was its prescription.
Posted by: John B. | January 03, 2016 at 09:29 AM
In a city of seven million on a great day in January, how many papers is normal for a large city in the US we need more responsibly planned reporting and a few other editorials of any issue to be reviewed appropriately - like science research and also for instance getting bids on construction - things need review by many,
Posted by: AMy McNamar | July 20, 2017 at 12:02 PM
I used to ride to work with my father in 1972-1973. He always had on a radio show in the early morning, 5AM. I believe the radio show was the Len Engibretsen show.
It may have been KTAR? KOY?
Anywhere I can find more information about that program and topics, music, etc?
Posted by: Delane Rhodes | December 14, 2022 at 08:57 AM