Where's My Purse Again?

Does Jimmy eat purses? Only if you blink at America West Arena.

Comments (0) Thursday, May 2 2002

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Now, that's not unusual in the shark-infested waters occupied by reporters, who, The Spike can tell you, are the biggest sharks of all. Journalists are notoriously competitive, some would say back-stabbing, and absolutely hate to credit the competition if they think they can get away without doing so. (Hey, that's what the Associated Press is for.)

What's interesting this time, however, is that Lujan shopped the story around to capitol reporters for weeks before it appeared in La Voz. Her people tell The Spike that she tried to get The Arizona Republic and other legislative reporters to write about it weeks ago. But the mainstream media took a pass, until Villa's story prompted an angry press release from Lugo, denying all. That hit the press room on April 22; on April 23 both the Republic and the Arizona Daily Star, closer to Lugo's home turf, published pieces.

Joe Forkan

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The Spike would think the roomful of reporters that is the capitol press corps would have snapped up first dibs on an interesting little dalliance like this in the face of otherwise boring (but important) budget bickering. (Note to self: Spike, take your clubs to the capitol more often.)

Perhaps the capitol press just needs to learn español.

With reporting from Laura Laughlin.

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