In the Sept. 28 Media Watch, John Schuster profiled KOLD Channel 13 news anchor Randy Garsee.

Make that ex-news anchor. He was fired this week.

John Schuster today talked to KOLD Vice President/GM Jim Arnold and Michelle Germano, the news director.

The backstory, according to John: Garsee sent out an e-mail criticizing Germano's managing style, and KOLD pulled the insubordination clause card in his contract. He's been with KOLD since March 1997. He and Kris Pickel anchored the No. 1 team in town, and they were voted Best of Tucson(TM) newscast.

JA: Randy is no longer at the station. As a manager, I don’t make snap decisions.

MG: As far as making the change and moving forward, we are moving forward. We expect to have an announcement on our female anchor within the next week. You will see her, and I think our viewers will be very excited and pleased with that decision. We are now searching for a male anchor, and we have a plan in place going into the November book. The content of our show is king, and viewers will still be able to get whatever they want out of KOLD.

MG: I’m not going to comment on a personnel issue that will lead to anything that happened with Randy. What I will comment on is KOLD’s news philosophy is live, local and late-breaking, and that encompasses weather and sports. It’s a total package. There’s a lot of people you can ask in the news industry of what viewers, especially in this community, want to take home every day, and part of that is weather. They want to know what it’s like when you walk out the door. Every day when we have our editorial meetings, we talk about what the viewers in this community want and what they’re asking for, and we respond to that and I think our ratings have shown they like what they’ve seen. It’s not anything about any personnel issue. It’s about moving forward, continuing our brand of live, local and late-breaking. That’s something we want to do every day, and in every editorial discussion we have.

Sure, there are other, pressing, more important political issues going on right now, but this really chaps my hide: AOL's Top 20 Women Who Rock Right Now is just wrong on so many levels, it's hard to even begin. Granted, the list is on AOL, and hence has to reach a "mainstream" audience, and everyone has different definitions of what it means to "rock," and numbers 7, 16, 18, and 14 definitely deserve to be there, as well as a few of the others, but Kelly Clarkson? Seriously? How much of her "rock" persona is actually her and not designed by record-label goons? I get suspicious when being a "woman who rocks" so often involves wearing sexy clothes and being a "bad girl."

1. It's nice Foley is revealing he was molested by a clergyman as a teenager and all, but I think it would have had more impact had he done so before the scandal erupted. Now it just looks like groveling.
2. I hope Democrats don't get too self-righteous about the scandal. It sucks that this is the thing that's dragging the GOP down, instead of more substantive issues like the bungled war in Iraq or the damage done to our democratic institutions and principles.
3. Homosexuality is not equivalent to pedophilia. I've read some of my socially conservative brethren already making that connection, and, well, it's not true. So just get used to it.
4. How would the news coverage and the outpouring of scorn be different if the pages were girls?

-- The hubbub over Russell Pearce's derogatory remark continues.

-- Those grumbles about Phoenix and Tucson merging? Well, one UA bigwig thinks it will really happen.

-- Got nukes?

There are sooo many things I could say about the Mark Foley matter. Here are just a few things:

-- OK, so he's checking into rehab. Good for him. However, even if he is an alcoholic, would that have ANYTHING to do with him sending inappropriate, sexual messages to underage boys? No, it would not.

-- If—and this is a huge if—the Republican leadership knew Foley was maybe doing stuff like this ... how could they look the other way. Aren't they the family values party? Allegedly?

-- I know there are exceptions (i.e., that idiot former New Jersey governor), but why does it seem like most of the politicians who get outed, usually in the process of doing something embarrassing, are Republicans? I don't mean this question in a snarky way; I mean it seriously.

Just some thoughts ...

The latest Tucson Weekly/Wick Communications Poll shows that Democrat Gabrielle Giffords has an 18-point lead over Republican Randy Graf.

The survey shows that 52 percent of voters surveyed supported Giffords, while just 34 percent supported Graf. Almost 10 percent of voters said they were undecided.

"I think the poll shows broad, bipartisan support across the district for Gabrielle Giffords," said Giffords campaign manager Rodd McLeod. "Ultimately, people are looking for someone who can reach across the party aisle and get things done. We've got a Congress that's just not effective."

Graf campaign manager R.T. Gregg said his candidate is still suffering from negative attacks during the GOP primary, but there's still plenty of time for Graf to bounce back.

"The only poll that matters is the one that voters cast," Gregg said. "We're not going to fall victim to being paralyzed by polls. We've got to get our message out."

While the size of Giffords' lead has varied in the polls that have been released to the public, Graf's support has remained in the mid-30s in each of them.

The survey found that Giffords was enjoying significant crossover support from Republicans. Only 62 percent of GOP voters said they would vote for Graf, while more than 85 percent of Democrats said they would support Giffords.

Libertarian candidate David Nolan had the support of 1.2 percent of surveyed voters, while independent candidate Jay Quick had 2 percent.

The Tucson Weekly/Wick Communications Poll, conducted by veteran pollster Margaret Kenski, surveyed 402 voters between Sept. 20 and Sept. 23. The margin of error is 4.3 percent.

More details can be found in the upcoming dead-plant-matter edition of the Tucson Weekly.