Tom Avila's Big Story

"Avila," as he calls himself when he's in the KFNX newsroom in Phoenix, wears dress shirts and suits over his stocky frame and a half-dozen press credentials dangle from his neck. He's learned how to schmooze and spin in his two parallel careers, and in person Avila's both ingratiating and creepy. He substitutes swear words with euphemisms like "son of a biscuit" and "fudge." In person and on the radio he calls women "Miss," whether they like it or not. Even National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice becomes "Miss Condy" in Avila's newscast.

The news director looks a little like Fred Flintstone would as a television weatherman, with dark hair, caterpillar eyebrows, and large features. His gaze is skewed by a slight lazy eye, and he develops a facial tic that pulsates next to his cheekbone when he talks about his past.

Avila claims his career in broadcasting began at 16, at the radio station his father ran in California; in fact, he does come from a family of noted journalists. He has always used Avila, his grandmother's maiden name, professionally; Simon is his legal given name. Simon's older brother, Jim Avila, now of 20/20, is an award-winning former correspondent for NBC Nightly News. Younger brother Jaie Avila is a television news anchor in San Antonio and Chris Simon, another brother, is a journalist in the Soviet Union.

Their father, Jim Simon, was a pioneer of talk radio who began his career in Texas in the '40s, then moved his family to Illinois and California, where he became vice president of CBS in the '60s.

(Avila says he and his family are not particularly close, which was confirmed in an e-mail from brother Jaie.)

Tom Avila says broadcasting is in his blood. "The first memory I have in my life is trying to figure out how my Dad got in that little box in the kitchen," he says. "I've been a journalist for 20 years, except, well, uh, those times in between."

In mid-March, New Times contacted Avila to ask about his true identity and recent arrests. He originally feigned ignorance, then called back a week later, ready to talk.

He slips out of his office on a recent Thursday and slides behind the wheel of the station car, a PT Cruiser with KFNX call letters and logos splashed all over it. As he pilots the vehicle down the street to a nearby shopping mall, he smashes into a pigeon in mid-flight. "Poor thing," he comments blandly, "That's the second time that's happened this week."

Avila pulls into a bagel shop and buys an orange juice, chatting up the cashier before he heads outside to a sidewalk table. Although Avila won't talk about either his criminal past or the charges against him now, he doesn't deny them, either. And, as he swelters in afternoon sun, his eyes squinting behind light blue sunglasses, he admits he didn't inform his employer of his past. Earlier experience obviously taught him it's not so easy for a guy with a past to find work as a journalist.

Once he was released from jail in California Avila says, he needed an income and fell back on his pre-prison career. It was all he had, he explains.

"I'm trained as a journalist, a newscaster, that's how I pay my bills. I cannot simply just stand by as this goes through the courts and sit home and eat Cheetos."

Avila maintains that despite trouble in his personal life, his professional record as a journalist is unsullied. (New Times could find no evidence of the contrary.) "The charges have absolutely nothing to do with my work. I've never been accused, in my entire life, of not following ethical boundaries as it relates to covering the news." He's hoping that will mean something to his employer, his listeners, and ultimately a judge.

In a letter about the Lewis prison hostage crisis printed in the Arizona Republic on February 7, he writes, "In the end, journalists are seekers of truth, but the final question remains: What good does knowing the truth do, if we fail to tell it?"

Fittingly, the letter is signed Tom Avila, not Tom Simon.

And now, you're really up to date.

E-mail susy.buchanan@newtimes.com, or call 602-229-8440.