Mary Jo West (born 1948[1]) is an American retired television news anchor who primarily worked in the Phoenix, Arizona, market.
[2] West started her television career in Tallahassee, Florida, first as a reporter for WCTV and later as a producer and host of a women's show on public station WFSU-TV.
[8] That year, she also portrayed Maria in the Phoenix Theatre's production of The Sound of Music, helping earn record-breaking funding to save the company.
She was the first woman to go to the Arizona State Prison Complex – Florence as she interviewed inmates for a documentary on sexual assault, winning a Rocky Mountain Emmy Award.
[13] In spite of having attracted an anchor who led the ratings at KOOL, KTVK failed to see increases in viewership for its newscasts and faced attacks from the media.
[9] She followed Mahoney as he worked on Gary Hart's presidential campaign[14] and founded a communications company, which closed in 1989 when she was hired to run the city of Phoenix's government-access channel.
Tipper Gore, hearing her talk at Northern Arizona University, invited her to participate at the White House Conference on Mental Health.
[3] In 2022, the Mary Jo West Excellence in Communication Scholarship was established at Coconino Community College, with preference given to a Native American female.