Thankful for: A seat at the table

I am thankful that you invited me back into your lives

Hellooooo Tucson,

Happy Thanksgiving week.

We’re giving the team the week off to work on future stories and big projects, including our Great Migration off of Substack to a new home.

A new year means a whole new Tucson Agenda!

But we couldn’t just ghost you all week.

So each of our team members wrote a little thank-you note to our readers about whatever it is they’re thankful for.

First up, Joe is thankful that he gets to do a job he truly loves — again.

But first, we still want to hear from you on our annual survey, which will help guide our work next year.

Please take a moment to give us a piece of your mind!

I had deep-seated concerns about whether I would earn your trust again.

It’s the part I don’t usually say out loud, but it’s the truth at the root of why I’m thankful this year.

When I returned to daily reporting here at the Tucson Agenda, I carried with me a quiet fear that I’d been away from the room where it happens — yes, the “Hamilton” line fits — for too long.

Journalism is sort of like a muscle, and it had been a few years since I was going to the gym full-time.

A few months in, someone asked me to go on TV. I said no — politely — because deep down I didn’t feel like I’d earned that seat yet. I wasn’t sure I had the right to represent local journalism when I still felt like I was re-learning how to authentically show up.

Then an old friend, Bill Buckmaster, invited me onto his radio show. I couldn’t say no to Bill. Sitting across from him in that studio, with the red light on the microphone blinking, I felt something click. I was back. Not just a guy typing in his home office, but part of a larger journalism community again.

Joe with then-presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke in 2019.

Journalism is a calling and a daily act of public service for me — sometimes going toe-to-toe with powerful people, challenging the public narrative and asking tough questions — not just to satisfy my personal curiosity, but to let Tucson know what’s happening in the community. Thomas Jefferson once said the Fourth Estate serves as a tocsin — a warning bell. I think about that every time I start writing.

But none of that works without you.

In a world where doom-scrolling is the default, you’ve chosen to engage. To read the long stories, the quick hits, the meeting recaps, the dispatches from page 82 of some bureaucratic memo I’ve read.

Some of you have shown patience with an introvert who still gets anxious asking questions, and kindness on the days when my voice falters or my reporting stumbles. You’ve given me grace, empathy, and a place at the table again.

So this is a love letter. Not to journalism — though I’m endlessly grateful for the chance to do this work — but to you. For reading. For caring. For reminding me, every single day, why I came back.