#MediaMonday – Joe Ferguson

Joe Ferguson (JOE FERGUSON-cq), Pima county reporter. Monday May 06, 2013 Tucson, Arizona photo by: Mamta Popat / Arizona Daily Star MANDATORY CREDIT, NO SALES, NO MAG

Today’s #MediaMonday comes to us from Tucson.  Joe Ferguson is the current president of the Arizona Press Club and a reporter for the Arizona Daily Star, where he’s been for the last three years, covering Pima County, transportation and politics before moving to the investigative team.  [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=”@joeferguson @Hanner66 @azds”]Like me, he got his start professionally in Flagstaff.[/inlinetweet] There he covered business and city hall for the Arizona Daily Sun.

He’s got a number of awards to his credit, a pair of First Amendment awards from the Society of Professional Journalists  and several awards from the Arizona Press Club and the Arizona Newspaper Association.

Joe, time to share:

I learned how to read on my father’s lap, first sounding out words in the comics in the Milwaukee Journal. The section I remember best was called the Green Sheet because it was dyed green. From comics, I moved on to news articles and was reading stories before I entered the first grade. I got in trouble because I refused to read books in the first grade, as I said they were “boring.”

I was hooked on becoming a journalist at an early age. [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=”@joeferguson”]Who wants to read See Spot Run when I can keep tabs on Congress?[/inlinetweet]

I went to junior high and high school in Sahuarita and began visiting the University of Arizona campus on a regular basis after getting my driver’s license. [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=”@dailywildcat @uofa”]I remember scouting campus looking for the Arizona Daily Wildcat newsroom[/inlinetweet]. I begged my journalism teacher who lived in Tucson as was going to the U of A for grad school to bring me copies of the Daily Wildcat to read.

I really enjoyed covering the recent Congressional District 2 election as well as the subsequent recounts, this was a big election and I enjoyed the twists and turns that came with it.

In Flagstaff, I covered a very tragic mid-air collision of two medical helicopters. It was a big story for the community and I enjoyed working with a team of reporters on a number of follow-ups.

Also in Flagstaff, I covered the housing market for seven years. During that time, I watched as a number of middle-class families struggled to find housing, dedicated public servants and community members worked to find solutions and how a number of smart, hard-working people lost their homes due to unfair loan practices and projects failing to ever get off the ground.

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