AZPBS Error Leaves Popular Candidate Out Of Maricopa County Recorder Debate

An error by Arizona PBS caused the favorite candidate of the Republican Party’s grassroots to be absent from the network’s debate for the Maricopa County Recorder’s race. Arizona PBS political news producer, Grace Provenzano, apologized to candidate, Arizona State Rep. Justin Heap, but not before political opponents attempted to score political points off of Heap’s absence.

Despite the egregious error, Ted Simons, host and managing editor of the debate’s platform, “Arizona Horizon,” failed to mention it before he began to moderate the June 11th debate between only two of the three candidates running in the Republican primary, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and Don Hiatt.

On Wednesday, June 12, 2024, Provenzano contacted Heap to apologize. She wrote:

Hello Candidate Heap,

I want to apologize, once again, for our failure to reach you in a timely fashion in advance of the Maricopa County Recorder debate event yesterday. We know that it placed you in your campaign at a disadvantage and for that we are truly sorry.

In order to provide equitable airtime, we would like to schedule a one-on-one interview with you and Horizon host Ted Simon to offer you the opportunity to discuss your campaign platform and issues for our viewers. The interview would be pre-taped to air during the regular broadcast of Arizona Horizon the same day it is recorded. We would like to schedule the on-set interview as soon as possible so it can be seen prior to the beginning of the early primary voting.

Can you provide me with days and times you would be available over the next two weeks?

Thank you,
Grace

That interview is reportedly scheduled to air Thursday, June 27, 2024 at 5:00 p.m.

According to sources close to the Heap campaign, they only learned a little about the July 11 event from Stephen Richer’s twitter feed.

It wasn’t until someone from Arizona PBS finally called Heap’s campaign at 3:00 p.m. on the eleventh, asking if Heap could make it to the studio by 4:00 p.m.

Heap relayed that he could not get from East Mesa to downtown Phoenix in rush hour traffic until 4:15. The staff advised that 4;14 would be too late for their purposes.

Later, a request was found in Heap’s Legislative email account. Political consultants say that had Heap responded to that message he could have been accused of using public resources for partisan politics, a violation of State law.

“Heap was smart not to respond to the AZPBS email. They would have slapped him for using his legislative email account for his Recorder’s campaign,” one long-time conservative political consultant told the Arizona Daily Independent. “Lawmakers get so much spam, and I can’t imagine how many times Republican lawmakers have marked AZPBS mail as spam. So, it is understandable that Heap might not have seen it, and prudent that he did not respond.”

The consultant told the Arizona Daily Independent that seasoned, and “honest” reporters know better than to ask about anything related to campaign to any address other than that owned by a candidate’s campaign.

“But,” said the consultant, “sleazy partisans posing as news people often try to trip up candidates they disfavor.

“Heap is a notoriously frugal man,” said the consultant, “I doubt that he would be the pick for Recorder for anyone who works at PBS, especially given the general feeling among Republicans that the outfit should not get another dime of taxpayer money.”

During a debate over the weekend in Sun City West Richer was once again booed by Republican grassroots.

Richer earned their scorn after he was swept into office in 2020 due to his promise to clean up the disastrous state of elections in the nation’s largest conservative county only to later change his tune. It was when he claimed that the botched election of 2022 did not disenfranchise mostly Republican voters that he lost the confidence of his party’s base.

In the 2022 election, Richer apologized on Election Day for the myriad of problems with election day voting caused largely by the County’s Election Department controlled by the Board of Supervisors. Yet, he did not support a legal effort to extend voting hours to ensure that those who were turned away earlier in the day from voting centers with malfunctioning equipment could vote.

Richer’s refusal to advocate for voters’ rights among other things have left him with the support of mostly democrats who cannot vote in the Republican Primary. As a result, many believe that the use of Heap’s legislative email address was anything but an “error.”

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For his part, Heap appears to be grateful that AZPBS is at least trying to “fix it by giving him an interview next Thursday,” according to a colleague of Heap. “Let’s face it, fewer than 200 people actually watched the “debate” between Richer and Hiatt, so, did Justin really miss anything of value at all?”