Last August, radio morning news anchor LaDona Harvey left her job at San Diego’s KOGO 600-AM and relocated to Phoenix to care for her ailing father, who has Alzheimer’s. Harvey had worked at KOGO for 27 years and had co-anchored the morning news with Ted Garcia for 10 years. At the time, she described her departure as “the end of an era.”
On Monday, Jan. 13, Harvey will start a new era at Phoenix’s KTAR News 92.3 as morning news co-anchor alongside Jim Sharpe for “Arizona’s Morning News,” which airs from 5 to 8 a.m. She succeeds longtime morning anchor Jayme West, who recently retired.
“I’m just as shocked as anyone,” Harvey told Times of San Diego. “I would call this sheer dumb luck, really.”
Harvey said her agent reached out to Brian Long, KTRA director of programming operations, who previously spent a decade of programming news, talk, and sports at iHeart Media stations in San Diego, including KOGO.
“I heard that Jayme was retiring,” said Harvey. “I was one of three candidates they interviewed and I got the job. I know how fortunate I am. On to new adventures.”
Harvey said a caregiver helps her with her father. “Alzheimer’s is what it is,” Harvey said. “My dad is definitely in a downward slide, but it’s gradual, not fast, but it’s happening. There’s no cure, but he will be part of a research study starting soon. We take it one day at a time.”
Prior to KOGO, in the 1980s and 1990s, Harvey worked as a DJ at KOOL-FM (now known as BIG 94.5) in Phoenix and at KMGN-FM 93.9 in Flagstaff.
“I am thrilled to be back home in Arizona, joining the finest news team in the Valley at KTAR,” said Harvey. “I have the privilege of continuing to care for my ailing father and doing a job I am passionate about — telling Phoenix listeners the stories that affect their lives and livelihoods.”
KTAR is operated by Bonneville International, which operates radio and TV stations in six western U.S. markets. Headquartered in Salt Lake City, Bonneville is a subsidiary of Deseret Management Corp.
“We are excited to welcome LaDona to the talented Arizona’s Morning News team,” said Ryan Hatch, Phoenix senior VP and market manager, Bonneville International. “She is a natural storyteller with an infectious personality and a passion for connecting with the community.”
L.A. County’s Wildfires Affecting Ad Industry
Los Angeles County’s catastrophic wildfires are affecting the city’s advertising community as workers across the industry, including agencies, brands, production companies, post-production houses and crews hired for ad shoots deal with evacuations, personal losses and business disruptions, as reported by industry trade publications.
“Everyone has friends who have lost something,” Evin Shutt, global CEO of Los Angeles-based 72andSunny, told Advertising Age. “A friend of mine lost his home, his office and his kids’ school, all gone. Even if you’re not personally affected, your heart is breaking for friends and loved ones.”
“We’ve all watched businesses we love, bars we’ve drank at and restaurants we’ve been to, burn,” said Jed Cohen, executive creative director at Mother LA, to Advertising Age.
“Watching the news when the places are on fire is surreal. More than anything, there is just a heaviness and an overwhelming sadness as we watch our city burn and people’s lives and homes and livelihoods destroyed.”
Since L.A. is the country’s top hub for TV commercial production, shoots have been delayed, including for Super Bowl spots.
Officials with ad agency Highdive told Advertising Age there are insurance implications for additional costs related to delaying TV shoots or moving shoots to other cities. “We have insurance, but every project has a different level of insurance,” Highdive’s Jen Passaniti told Advertising Age.
“If you’re going to postpone a shoot, there’s a lot of fine print you need to read through and make sure you really understand what you’re covered for, what you’re not covered for.”
AdWeek reported that many brands are lending a helping hand in their own way to those in need, including: AirBnB is offering free temporary housing and discounts are available aboard the Queen Mary and in Big Bear and Anaheim; Uber and Lyft are giving credit for trips for evacuated residents; DoorDash and Instacart are providing free deliveries to first responders and shelters with displaced residents; Planet Fitness and 24-Hour Fitness are giving free access to gyms, locker rooms, showers, and charging stations.
Trade publications report that many brands have donated products and services ranging from cosmetics, skincare, pet veterinary appointments, apparel, infant formula, bedding, cell phone service and pizza.
Iconic L.A. bagel truck Yeastie Boys is offering free bagels to firefighters and people who have been evacuated from their homes. Yeastie Boys posted on Instagram: “We have bagels, we have food trucks, we want to pull up to any safe zones and feed firefighters or any displaced from their homes. Please drop suggestions in comments.”
Kristen Ludwig, co-founder of the L.A.-agency In Good Co, told Media Post, “This is how you build a brand in 2025, by showing up authentically when your community needs you most.”
R.J. Larese, Paramount’s VP of talent, told The Drum, “For marketers, taking meaningful action during crises isn’t just smart branding, it’s an opportunity to genuinely help. Initiatives like these build more than brand sentiment; they deepen trust and loyalty.”
Creatives React to Meta’s Fact-Checking Gone
Creative advertising veterans Michael Duffy and Barry Whitfield, partners with San Diego ad agency Duff!Bear, reacted to Meta’s recent announcement to end third-party, fact-checking and replace it with a “community notes” system also used by Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter. The change will affect Facebook, Instagam, and Threads in the U.S.
“Our agency’s tagline is `Truth Means Business,’” said Duffy, Duff!Bear co-creative director and copywriter. “The concept comes from the idea that truth is the most powerful connective force on the planet. It brings people and profits up, and moves the world forward.”
Whitfield, Duff!Bear co-creative director and art director, told Times of San Diego, “In Meta’s case, we discovered that the leveraging of the First Amendment’s freedom of speech and the belief [in] crowdsourcing in social media does not result in accuracy.
“Truth speaks louder and more clearly than anything else. That’s why we use the exclamation point in our logo. The search for truth, in a brave and safe environment, is the whole point of our passion and profession.”
As part of the tech giant’s announcement, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a five-minute video, “We’re gonna get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free speech on our platforms. The fact checkers have just been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created. First, we’re going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with Community Notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.”
Zuckerberg said after Donald Trump won the 2016 election, Meta tried addressing concerns made by the “legacy media about how misinformation was a threat to democracy.” As part of that effort, Facebook partnered with a number of prominent legacy media outlets which were tasked with fact-checking high-profile stories that were receiving significant attention on the platform.
The social media conglomerate also said it will simplify its content moderation policies, which Zuckerberg said have “gone too far,” and will encourage discourse instead of shutting down users for their opinions or beliefs.
“The problem here is that the filters make mistakes and take down a lot of content that they shouldn’t,” Zuckerberg said. “So by dialing them back, we’re going to dramatically reduce the amount of censorship on our platforms.”
Meta also said it will work closely with the incoming Trump administration.
“The bottom line is that after years of having our content moderation work focused primarily on removing content, it is time to focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our systems and getting back to our roots about giving people voice,” Zuckerberg said in his video.
“The fundamental question is the difference and melding of information and entertainment,” said Duffy. “In Meta’s case, the currency of the brand is the quantity of conversation itself – the more talk, the more revenue. Feeling is way more entertaining than facts, so fantasy and fabrication win.”
Whitfield said, “We’re creatives, not media moguls. But, maybe it’s time for another media revolution, far more objective albeit far less titillating than its flashy relative, that gives us just the facts so we can accurately choose flip flops or umbrellas, pick this product or that, or trust that someone really is looking out for us, not against us.”
Rick Griffin is a San Diego-based public relations and marketing consultant. His MarketInk column appears weekly on Mondays in Times of San Diego.
