Producer, Reporter, Announcer
Paul began producing KJZZ’s Here and Now in June 2006 and hosting Sunday Weekend Edition in January 2007. He also reports for Morning Edition and helps coordinate the news side of KJZZ’s website. Paul says he likes the opportunity to bring listeners the depth of information and context that public radio excels at. “There’s a reason why NPR is rated as one of the most trusted names in news and why KJZZ is one of the most listened to radio stations in Arizona,” says Atkinson.
A native of the southwest, Paul grew up in El Paso and the Four Corners area of New Mexico. He came to Arizona in 1990 after working behind the scenes for a television station in San Diego where he went to school at San Diego City College, Grossmont College and San Diego State.
Paul braved five days of 120 degree temperatures working as a TV reporter and anchor in Yuma in 1990. Two years later, he left the desert southwest for a reporting job in Boise, Idaho. He arrived just in time to cover elements of the Randy Weaver standoff with FBI agents and the largest wildfire in the nation that year. After one of the worst winters on record, Paul returned to Arizona the next year and began reporting for KPHO-TV in Phoenix. He left commercial TV news in 1996, for what was to him, the brave new world of public broadcasting. Paul reported and produced in-depth segments, feature stories and specials for KAET’s Horizon program, a show that he watched nightly when he first moved to the state. Paul left KAET to work in communications for the ASU College of Law in 2005. He launched the college’s first electronic newsletter and helped recruit its current director of communications, who Paul admits “does a much better job that I ever could.”
Paul has earned more than three dozen awards for his work including ‘Best Reporter of the Year’ from the Arizona Associated Press Broadcasters Association and two Rocky Mountain Emmy awards.
