Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos.This is an ongoing story and will be updated.
A local news outlet is defending one of its reporters after Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos accused a local reporter of colluding with Sheriff's Department employee and Nanos' Republican challenger Heather Lappin, to pay jail inmates for stories.
In the news release, Nanos did not name the reporter or outlet but several media outlets pointed the finger at Arizona Luminaria.
AZLuminaria says criminal justice reporter John Washington, known for his reporting on deaths at the jail since 2022, reimbursed an inmate for the cost of calling him on the phone from the Pima County Jail this summer, totaling $20 plus a $4.99 fee.
According to an AZLuminaria article published in response to the allegations, Washington contacted a public information officer with the Pima County Sherrif's Department to coordinate interviews with people in the Pima County Jail but eventually began contacting Heather Lappin, a section commander at the jail, to arrange the interviews. Lappin is the Republican candidate for Sheriff running against Nanos.
In text messages cited in the article, Washington told Lappin that he wanted to reimburse the inmate for the cost of contacting him, and asked her about the process of depositing money in a prepaid account.
Principal Executive of AZLuminaria Irene Fischler McKisson said they do not pay for sources, interviews, or information.
“We paid $20 for a phone call with an inmate, who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to talk to a journalist because of the cost of the jail phone system. And that is part of our ethics, that we believe facilitating information and being able to tell the story of what's happening inside the jail is incredibly important,” she said.
On Monday, Nanos placed Lappin on administrative leave for alleged collusion with an unnamed reporter. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department defended the suspension in a written statement Tuesday.
“Lt. Lappin granted the journalist access to inmates for interviews and provided him with access to deposit funds into the inmates' accounts. These actions raise several policy and ethical concerns regarding appropriate conduct of jail business by command staff,” the statement read.
AZPM asked Nanos for documentation of the alleged collusion between Lappin and Washington.
He did not provide any documentation and only said, “The matter is under investigation.”
When the Tucson news outlets reported Tuesday night that the journalist was with AZLuminaria, they said that information came from a source but did not name that source or indicate they had seen any documentation from the source about the allegation.
Fischler McKisson said their ongoing reporting on the Pima County Jail “is what ethical journalism looks like.”
“There is a clear ethical difference between using money to encourage someone to speak to a reporter and reimbursing a source for an expense incurred in doing the interview,” according to the follow-up article.
“It's facilitating the ability to get information. It's not paying for information,” Fischler McKisson said. “We spend a lot of time making sure that what we're doing is in the service of journalism.”
Fischler McKisson said suspending a political opponent “is the bigger story.”
“We don't want to be the subject of news. We want to be able to report the news. And you know, for voters who are already starting to vote in this election cycle, putting a political opponent on leave I think is the bigger story,” she said.
By submitting your comments, you hereby give AZPM the right to post your comments and potentially use them in any other form of media operated by this institution.