Phoenix New Times

“It’s A Prank, Bro!”

“It’s A Prank, Bro!”

Recently we wrote a piece in which we called Tony Ortega ‘radioactive’ for this habitual lack of professionalism and his penchant for bald face lying in the face of contradictory reality. Our recent blog posts about Ortega’s dubious history as a writer for cheap tabloids prompted one reader of this blog to recall yet another offensive piece which Ortega had published years ago. First, however, we offer you a little context calling your attention to what has been a very disturbing trend on YouTube and other social media platforms in which so-called ‘content creators’ engage in wildly dangerous, irresponsible pranks in order to attract an audience.
Meet Tony Ortega the Backpage dot com Apologist

Meet Tony Ortega the Backpage dot com Apologist

Tony Ortega’s “journalistic” career began with The Phoenix New Times in the mid 90’s when the company’s then flagship paper, The New Times, became part of the Village Voice Media merger in 2005. After a four-year stint as staff writer, Ortega wrote for The New Times Los Angeles for three years before returning to become Associate Editor of The Phoenix New Times. Following this, he became managing editor of The New Times-owned The Pitch, in Kansas City, where he worked from 2003-2005 before leaving to become editor of the New Times Broward-Palm Beach.