Off Deadline

Melissa DiGianfilippo, Proof Publicity

Off Deadline goes beyond the headlines to reveal what really happens when the cameras stop rolling and the deadlines pass. Host Melissa DiGianfilippo, Founder and CEO of Proof Publicity, creates a rare safe space where top journalists drop their professional guard to share the moments that changed everything—the ethical crossroads that kept them awake, the sources that most surprised them, the stories that broke them, and the victories no one will ever write about. From the hilarious disasters to the heart-stopping close calls, veteran journalists share the wild, unforgettable moments that never made it into their reporting. These are the behind-the-scenes confessions, the career-defining chaos, and the human moments that remind us why journalism is equal parts calling and complete madness. This isn't about breaking news—it's about the people who lived through the craziest moments while chasing the story, and the experiences they'll never forget. If you've ever wondered what it really takes to be a storyteller in our chaotic world, Off Deadline delivers the raw, unfiltered truth behind journalism's most compelling voices. Watch on YouTube and listen wherever you get your podcasts!

  1. قبل ٦ أيام ·  فيديو

    Patrick O'Grady on 30 Years in Arizona Newsrooms, X-Acto Knives to Digital & Selling the Story

    Send us Fan Mail He keeps every thank-you note a reader has ever mailed him, because journalists mostly hear the other kind of feedback. Patrick O'Grady has spent 30 years in Valley journalism, from the X-Acto knife and waxer days to tracking newsletter open rates, and he has strong opinions about what it takes for local news to survive. Patrick began as a reporter covering everything from bake sales to billion dollar economic deals across Glendale, Surprise and the renewable energy beat. Today he is editor in chief of Independent News Media's Arizona division, leading award winning teams through the industry shift from print to digital. Off the clock he is chasing good music and good food, and he has been playing guitar longer than he has been a journalist. On this episode of Off Deadline, Melissa DiGianfilippo, founder of Proof Publicity, sits down with Patrick to get into: Starting at Independent in 1993, covering Sun City West, and coming back decades later to run itWhy everything online should be for sale, and why journalists hate hearing itThe annual water series his team started before everyone wanted to talk about waterWriting the data centers and water story a year before it was a big topicDigital first, SEO and the stories you wish you could pull backHow he can tell when a reporter does not care, or does not understand the storyForty years of guitar and a college band that played 80s new waveThe Receipt: a stack of thank-you notes from readersAdvice to his first-year self: take the meeting, take the call, take the coffeeFollow Independent News Media: @yourvalley | yourvalley.net Follow the host, Melissa DiGianfilippo: @melissadflip Produced by Turnkey Media: https://www.turnkeymediaaz.com 📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@proof-publicity 🔗 Check out Proof Publicity → https://proofpublicity.com

  2. ٨ سبتمبر ·  فيديو

    Amy Silverman on Three Decades Covering Phoenix, the Arpaio Wedding Rumor & a Ronan Farrow DM

    Send us Fan Mail Sheriff Joe Arpaio spent years telling people he was at her wedding. He was not. Amy Silverman covered him too long and too well for that rumor to survive, and it is not even the strangest story in this episode. Amy Silverman is a journalist, writer and teacher who has covered her hometown of Phoenix for more than three decades. She spent 25 years at Phoenix New Times and is now executive producer of The Show on KJZZ, the Phoenix NPR station. A three-time Arizona Press Club Journalist of the Year, she has reported on Arizonans with disabilities for ProPublica, with work appearing in The New York Times and on This American Life. Off the clock she co-teaches Mothers Who Write and co-curates the Bar Flies reading series at Valley Bar. On this episode of Off Deadline, Melissa DiGianfilippo, founder of Proof Publicity, sits down with Amy to get into: The juvenile corrections investigation two colleagues handed off, which led to a DOJ investigation and real reformsFiling that project on July 1 and giving birth to her first daughter on July 10The New Year's Day story that broke while she stood in line at DisneylandA year with ProPublica on disability services in Arizona, and why that coverage is personalArizona: a great place to be a journalist and a lousy place to be a human beingThe Receipt: a gold heart necklace engraved with a Talking Heads lyricThe Cost Plus ritual she cannot explainThe Ronan Farrow DM that surfaced a story she forgot she wrote, headlined Die HardAdvice to her first-year self: trust yourselfFollow Amy: @amysilverman on Instagram | amysilverman.com Follow KJZZ: @kjzzphoenix Follow the host, Melissa DiGianfilippo: @melissadflip Check out Proof Publicity → https://proofpublicity.com Produced by Turnkey Media: https://www.turnkeymediaaz.com 📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@proof-publicity 🔗 Check out Proof Publicity → https://proofpublicity.com

  3. ١ سبتمبر ·  فيديو

    Aiesha Beasley on Building Arizona Places, Brand Deal Regrets & the Industry Plant Rumor

    Send us Fan Mail She was furloughed for three months during Covid, started throwing videos at TikTok for fun, and Arizona Places happened by accident. Six years later she is full time, and the advice she gives anyone chasing it is blunt: a hobby mindset gives you hobby results. Aiesha Beasley is a Tucson native and Phoenix based content creator, entrepreneur and podcast host who has spent more than a decade building community online. Known to her audience as Arizona Places, she showcases the best of the state, from restaurants and hotels to the hidden gems most locals miss. She co-hosts the Thriving Loudly podcast, and her platforms have grown to 175K on TikTok and 156K on Instagram with partnerships spanning major brands, tourism organizations and media outlets. On this episode of Off Deadline, Melissa DiGianfilippo, founder of Proof Publicity, sits down with Aiesha to get into: Why a hobby mindset gives you hobby results, and a business mindset gives you business resultsSigning with management, the 20 percent, and how contracts actually 10X a creator's incomeThe early yeses she regrets, including five year usage and one year exclusivity she did not understandWorking with Wells Fargo, then spending months fighting to get her content pulled when a scandal hitBurnout, the hamster wheel, and reinventing after a decade onlineThe rumor that she was an Arizona industry plant spreading state propagandaThe big money brand deals and political campaigns she turned downThe Receipt: her first camera, and the shy kid who found a creative outlet onlineHer real superpower, a color coded Google Calendar and a filming scheduleThe POV video that got a million views and a pile of hate for nothingFollow Aiesha: @aieshabeasley and @arizonaplaces_ on Instagram Follow the host, Melissa DiGianfilippo: @melissadflip Learn more about Proof Publicity: https://proofpublicity.com Produced by Turnkey Media: https://www.turnkeymediaaz.com 📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@proof-publicity 🔗 Check out Proof Publicity → https://proofpublicity.com

  4. ٢٥ أغسطس ·  فيديو

    Joe Huizenga on 22 Years in Radio, Losing 100 Pounds With Crohn's & Why He Won't Play Gotcha

    Send us Fan Mail A doctor told him at twelve that if he treated Crohn's disease like a death sentence, it would become one. Twenty years later Joe Huizenga lost 100 pounds during Covid and ran a marathon almost entirely alone, no crowd, no finish line medal. It is still the thing he is proudest of, and it is not on his resume. Joe Huizenga has been in broadcasting since 2004, the year he graduated from ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism. He came to Phoenix from Ann Arbor to call sports, was part of the first crew to broadcast ASU hockey when it was still a club sport, and got pushed into news by a program director who told him he was too smart not to do it. He joined KTAR News in 2008 and has been a producer, executive producer, assistant program director, weekend host and now co-host of Arizona's Evening News alongside Becky Lynn. He is drawn to public safety, the border, housing and the economy, and to the kitchen table version of all of it. On this episode of Off Deadline, Melissa DiGianfilippo, founder of Proof Publicity, sits down with Joe to get into: Losing 100 pounds during Covid and the doctor's line he never forgotRunning a marathon with no crowd and no medal, and why that one counts mostWhy he refuses to play gotcha, even when he admires the interviewers who doThe Martha Stewart interview that went in a direction he did not wantManaging on-air talent, or as he calls it, adult babysittingThe dinner with his boss where he was certain he was about to be firedHow close he came to leaving radio for a psychology degreeThe Receipt: his medal from his first marathon, on the Las Vegas strip at nightThe unwritten rule of broadcasting: be a Swiss Army knife or be goneThe comment about his looks that ate at him for yearsTwenty-five years in, the part he loves most is not talking. It is listening. Follow Joe: @joehuizenga on Instagram Follow KTAR News: @ktarnews Follow the host, Melissa DiGianfilippo: @melissadflip Produced by Turnkey Media: https://www.turnkeymediaaz.com 📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@proof-publicity 🔗 Check out Proof Publicity → https://proofpublicity.com

  5. ١٨ أغسطس ·  فيديو

    Kyle Unfug on 20 Years on The Johnjay & Rich Show, Shwanding & the Rumor She Had to Live Down

    Send us Fan Mail Kyle Unfug blew off radio. She took the internship to get it out of the way, decided radio was the worst, and planned to go do television instead. Twenty-five years later she is still there, and she has co-hosted The Johnjay & Rich Show since 2008. Kyle went to the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State, interned at a Phoenix radio station, and got hired to co-host nights. Overnights, weekends and middays came next. Then the 3 a.m. phone calls started, asking her to fill in on the morning show. She filled in for a full year, working mornings and middays at the same time, before she finally told them to commit. They told her it had always been her. She also appears weekly on Your Life Arizona with entertainment and pop culture updates. On this episode of Off Deadline, Melissa DiGianfilippo, founder of Proof Publicity, sits down with Kyle to get into: Why she wrote radio off during her internship, and the night host who changed her mindThe year of 3 a.m. phone calls that split her career into a before and an afterSchwanding: the word she coined for show plus bonding, and why she is proud of itWhy tension behind the mic is something listeners can hear even when nobody names itThe Tim Ballard interview on child sex trafficking she still gets sick thinking aboutGetting recognized in her 20s and the accountability that came with itWhy she never considered quitting work after her kids, and the guilt she almost carriedThe Receipt: a printed photo with Hulk Hogan from the 2005 Teen Choice Awards, her first red carpet aloneTelling John Cena on that red carpet that she wanted to have his babiesThe celebrity who genuinely surprised her, and the two rumors she had to hear about herselfThe on-air moment she will never live downHer advice to her first-year self, and the laptop full of career photos she never got backRadio makes people feel less alone. That is the whole reason she stayed. Follow Kyle: @unfug Follow The Johnjay & Rich Show: @johnjayandrich Follow the host, Melissa DiGianfilippo: @melissadflip Learn more about Proof Publicity Produced by Turnkey Media #OffDeadline #KyleUnfug #JohnjayAndRich #PhoenixRadio #ProofPublicity Watch this episode on YouTube 📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@proof-publicity 🔗 Check out Proof Publicity → https://proofpublicity.com

    Kyle Unfug on 20 Years on The Johnjay & Rich Show, Shwanding & the Rumor She Had to Live Down
  6. ١١ أغسطس ·  فيديو

    Paul Maryniak on 50 Years in Newsrooms, the Jail Interview He Regrets & Being Mistaken for a Gunman

    Send us Fan Mail The guard walked out and closed the door. Paul Maryniak was left sitting across a table from a 28-year-old on trial for his fifth homicide, no handcuffs, close enough to touch. He listened the whole time thinking one thing: I have to get out of here. Fifty years later, it is still the interview he wishes he had done differently.  Paul started in journalism in the 1970s and joined the Pittsburgh Press in 1975 as an investigative reporter. He went on to the Philadelphia Daily News, came west in 1999 for the East Valley Tribune, led East Valley coverage as metro editor at The Arizona Republic, and today is executive editor of Times Media Group, overseeing seven weekly newspapers plus three publications he launched himself. He is 77 and plans to work another ten years.  On this episode of Off Deadline, Melissa DiGianfilippo, founder of Proof Publicity, sits down with Paul to get into:  The jail interview with a five-time killer, and the question he never asked How a 13-year-old's murder taught him to knock on a grieving family's doorThe line he used with next of kin that worked every timeLaunching 13 community publications at The Arizona Republic before the Great RecessionThe career gamble everyone warned him about, and hanging up on one of the world's richest menWhy he loves crime stories, police procedurals, and watching a case get crackedThe Receipt: the newspaper commercial he starred in, where the final cut showed only his fingers on the keysReaching into his coat pocket at Philadelphia City Hall and being mistaken for a gunmanWhy he would have been a criminal prosecutor if he had not been a reporter Fifty years in, Paul still runs on the same thing that got him in: no two days are the same.  Follow Times Media Group: @timesmediagroup Follow the host, Melissa DiGianfilippo: @melissadflip  Learn more about Proof Publicity Produced by Turnkey Media  #OffDeadline #PaulMaryniak #TimesMediaGroup #ArizonaJournalists #ProofPublicity  📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@proof-publicity 🔗 Check out Proof Publicity → https://proofpublicity.com 📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@proof-publicity 🔗 Check out Proof Publicity → https://proofpublicity.com

    Paul Maryniak on 50 Years in Newsrooms, the Jail Interview He Regrets & Being Mistaken for a Gunman
  7. ٤ أغسطس ·  فيديو

    Stephanie Innes on Covering the Giffords Shooting, Health Reporting & 33 Years in Journalism

    Send us Fan Mail She was out running errands when her phone would not stop ringing. Stephanie Innes pulled her car to the side of the road in Tucson and learned that Gabby Giffords, someone she had written about and used to see around town, had been shot. Then the national media landed, and she found out what it means to be the local reporter who is still there after everyone else flies to the next disaster. Stephanie Innes has been a journalist for 33 years. She grew up in Toronto, got her graduate degree in journalism at Northwestern, and drove herself to Flagstaff for a city government job at a paper she had never seen in a state she had never visited. She went on to the Arizona Daily Star in Tucson and has covered health care for The Arizona Republic since 2018, focusing on patient safety, hospital quality and health policy, including leading the paper's COVID-19 coverage. On this episode of Off Deadline, Melissa DiGianfilippo, founder of Proof Publicity, talks with Stephanie about: Reporting the Giffords shooting, and being pushed aside at her own storyLosing a shoe in the snow to reach a plane crash, and the moment that made her a more aggressive reporterThe story she got right that still does not sit well with herWhy she wants her health stories free for the people who need them mostWhat growing up in the Canadian health system taught her about covering American health careThe wildest rumor she ever heard about herself, involving a bishop, jogging and vegetarian mealsHer receipt: a painting of the Tucson desert from a woman she followed for six monthsThe advice she would give her younger self, the honest versionAfter 33 years, she says her real superpower is simply that she is still here. Follow Stephanie Innes: @StephReporter on Instagram Follow the host, Melissa DiGianfilippo: @melissadflip Learn more about Proof Publicity: https://proofpublicity.com Produced by Turnkey Media: https://www.turnkeymediaaz.com #OffDeadline #StephanieInnes #ArizonaRepublic #HealthJournalism #ArizonaPodcast Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@proof-publicity 📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@proof-publicity 🔗 Check out Proof Publicity → https://proofpublicity.com

    Stephanie Innes on Covering the Giffords Shooting, Health Reporting & 33 Years in Journalism
  8. ٢٨ يوليو ·  فيديو

    David Vicente on Building Welcome to Arizona to 1.3M Followers, a $100 First Client & Going Viral

    Send us Fan Mail Their parents thought they were drug dealers. Their first paid post was $100, and they celebrated with wings. Ten years later, David Vicente and his brother have turned Welcome to Arizona into one of the state's biggest local storytelling platforms — 1.3 million followers on Instagram, over 500K on TikTok, and a seven-figure business behind it. It didn't happen fast. The first 10,000 followers took two years. What started as an Instagram version of the Yellow Pages — a directory of local businesses two ASU students built because they couldn't afford a website — became the page brands call when they want Arizona's attention.  On this episode of Off Deadline, Melissa DiGianfilippo, founder of Proof Publicity, sits down with David to get into:  The $100 post from a local golf business that made it a real company Why the first 10K followers took two years — and why he's glad it did Editing in a home studio from 8 PM to midnight, every night, for yearsHis parents asking "is it legal?" — and how Kim Kardashian won them overCovering political moments as a platform 1.3 million people trustSplitting lanes with his brother: creative direction vs. operationsHitting seven figures and expanding to Vegas, Mexico City, and UtahThe Receipt: the gold award behind the Rafi Law Group lookalike campaign300 lookalikes and 20+ million views David's story is proof that consistency beats overnight success.Follow David Vicente and Welcome to Arizona: @welcometoarizona on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube and Facebook.  Follow the host, Melissa DiGianfilippo: @melissadflip Learn more about Proof Publicity: https://proofpublicity.com  Produced by Turnkey Media: https://www.turnkeymediaaz.com  #OffDeadline #WelcomeToArizona #DavidVicente #ArizonaCreators #ProofPublicity 📺  Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@proof-publicity 🔗 Check out Proof Publicity → https://proofpublicity.com 📺 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@proof-publicity 🔗 Check out Proof Publicity → https://proofpublicity.com

    David Vicente on Building Welcome to Arizona to 1.3M Followers, a $100 First Client & Going Viral

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Off Deadline goes beyond the headlines to reveal what really happens when the cameras stop rolling and the deadlines pass. Host Melissa DiGianfilippo, Founder and CEO of Proof Publicity, creates a rare safe space where top journalists drop their professional guard to share the moments that changed everything—the ethical crossroads that kept them awake, the sources that most surprised them, the stories that broke them, and the victories no one will ever write about. From the hilarious disasters to the heart-stopping close calls, veteran journalists share the wild, unforgettable moments that never made it into their reporting. These are the behind-the-scenes confessions, the career-defining chaos, and the human moments that remind us why journalism is equal parts calling and complete madness. This isn't about breaking news—it's about the people who lived through the craziest moments while chasing the story, and the experiences they'll never forget. If you've ever wondered what it really takes to be a storyteller in our chaotic world, Off Deadline delivers the raw, unfiltered truth behind journalism's most compelling voices. Watch on YouTube and listen wherever you get your podcasts!

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