You and I are buds, so I’ll deal you one of those not-for-print tales.
It takes place in the aughts, under the midday Florida sun on the patio of a fish-and-fries joint on Fort Lauderdale Beach. I was a staff writer for New Times Broward-Palm Beach, and I’d just written a cover story about a bull-necked anti-racist skinhead who went by the nom de guerre of Diablo. He sat across from me at a picnic table with an expression on his face like a thunderhead.
In person, Diablo could be darkly charming. Talking with him always felt like holding a pistol you were told (but could not verify) was unloaded. He was a hard-rock musician and scenester who’d whipped up an intriguing side hustle: selling DVDs of bloody beatings that he filmed at hardcore shows around South Florida. For $18, you could get a copy at Best Buy. This was my news hook for an admittedly lurid feature on him and a hard-to-reach subculture — that is to say, bread-and-butter New Times fare.
He and I had built a rapport over the previous few weeks. I’d interviewed him at his house, usually after midnight, and joined him at hardcore shows in Miami and West Palm Beach. But my cover story had just dropped, and it included some unflattering details about his past arrests. Memorably, among a long list: After a bar fight in which a bouncer got walloped with a T-shirt full of pool balls, police pulled Diablo over and found a telltale number-two ball in his pocket.
The Devil told me he had a bone to pick. Still, I didn’t realize how serious he was until he said to me at the table, “My boys told me I should give you a beat-down.”
I’ve had a lot of journalism jobs before and since — metro reporting in Chicago, government reporting in Honolulu, producing a late-night Netflix show in Hell’s Kitchen, crisscrossing the continent for ESPN to cover rodeo and fishing and hunting in some of America’s most remote, no-one-will-ever-find-the-body backwoods crannies. But I’m fairly sure that was the only moment when I thought a source might just decide to reach across a table and shatter my nose like a walnut.
Diablo went on. He said he was inclined to follow his friends’ advice at first. Then, as a few days passed, he thought better of it. “I realized you’re not my publicist,” he said. “You’re my journalist.”
I’m glad to report, Phoenix New Times readers, that the boots-and-braces skinhead decided not to kick the shit out of me. More to the point of this column, though, now that we’re cozied up and I’ve buried the lede, is that I’m now your journalist.
At Phoenix New Times, we’re going to be a pain for anyone who lies to, cheats or steals from the people of Phoenix. And we will punch back at anyone who makes a habit of punching down.
Phoenix New Times
This month, I joined the staff here as the editor-in-chief. For as long as I’ve been a reporter, I’ve known this paper and this job as the big leagues. Getting the offer to move here from New York City, where I’d been working on documentaries and financial podcasts, felt like a call-up to The Show. I barely knew whether to take a shot of Tullamore Dew or take a crash course on Arizona open-records laws. (The correct answer here, of course, is ¿por qué no los dos?)
What it means to be your journalist in 2025 is a more formidable question. The information environment in America quite frankly sucks right now, whether you’re a reader or a publisher.
New Times papers never regarded themselves as the papers of record — they’ve always been nonrequired reading, a mix of high- and low-brow reporting meant to inform and captivate you. Now we’re facing more competition than ever for your attention (smartphones are a pox), at a moment when Americans have elected a president who decries journalists as “the enemy of the people.”
Politicians and oligarchs who spout that position are trying to turn journalists into publicists for power. While I am at Phoenix New Times, that will not be our practice, no matter who’s in office. Point of fact, we’re going to be a pain for anyone who lies to, cheats or steals from the people of Phoenix. And we will punch back at anyone who makes a habit of punching down.
As we do, New Times will also help you indulge in this absolute rager of a city. We’ll continue to identify and elevate local badasses: the artists and chefs and musicians and designers and Dreamers and doers who are building this improbable boomtown in the Valley.
Phoenix is moving at the speed of America, more certain of the future than of the past – all gas, no brakes, drive it till it explodes on the 160-degree asphalt and then cash the insurance check. The paper should do more than simply come along for that ride. We should also help steer.
It was more than 50 years ago now that Arizona State students launched this paper as a protest against the student massacre at Kent State and the Vietnam War. The kids who created it in the '70s are now in their 70s. Admittedly, I’m new here, still trying to figure out whether we’re the establishment or an incursion. Maybe we’re both, at this point?
The paper has grown up with Phoenix, and vice-versa. We’re you, you’re us and we’re here on your behalf. When you see me at the bar, I’ll be eager to swap stories. Tell me a good one, and we just may get it into the paper.
