This is my story of a disheartening experience that sheds light on the sorry state of local television “journalism” in the North State.
I sued Butte County’s forever district attorney, Mike Ramsey, his equally non-transparent protégé, Sheriff Kory Honea, and, of course, the Chico Police Department for a pattern of unlawfully concealing records that belong, not to them, but to the public. These records would allow the public finally to learn about a handful of officer-involved shootings, including multiple killings – the most powerful use of government authority.
The lawsuit became necessary, in part, because Ramsey has made no determinations about the justification of any officer-involved killing since 2020, including the fatal shootings of Michael Oxley and Valerie Cadwallader last year. His negligence on non-fatal officer shootings dates back almost a decade, to 2017. Not only is Ramsey not doing his job, but his stonewalling also provides cover for police agencies that kill and want to prevent the public from finding out how.
I sent a press release about the lawsuit to the news media. North State Public Radio, the Enterprise-Record, ChicoSol and KZFR all did stories. Fledgling KRCR TV reporter Keith Jouganatos contacted me and came to my residence and filmed an interview. This was on Friday, Dec. 26. He said it would air Dec. 30 or Dec. 31.
When that didn’t happen and Jouganatos ghosted me, I called KRCR veteran Mike Mangus, who I’ve known for many years. Mangus told me he hoped I’d win my lawsuit and said he’d ask into it. He messaged back saying he was told “there was some concern about doing the story because you work for another news outlet.”
First off, I don’t work for ChicoSol. I’m a freelance journalist, writing mainly about Butte County law enforcement issues for the past decade. And all one had to do was glance at the first page of the lawsuit to see that it was filed by me as an individual. But the facts didn’t really matter. KRCR, after interviewing me and wishing it hadn’t, was just inventing excuses to kill the story and keep its viewers from learning about illegal obstruction by the largest law enforcement agencies in Butte County.
Redding-based KRCR is owned by the Sinclair News Group, which is an unapologetically right-wing propaganda machine. Sinclair has a news service that spins out a buffet of one-sided, Fox News-type content prominent on KRCR’s website. For example, the first story KRCR published about the brutal killing in Minneapolis of Renee Good by a masked ICE thug carried this headline: “American Flag Burned During Minneapolis Protests After ICE Shoots, Kills Woman.” According to FAIR, a national media watchdog group, Sinclair capitalizes on the trust developed by local newscasters by requiring them to recite far-right talking points. In 2018, Sinclair got busted having its anchors read from an identical Trump-sounding anti-media script. A truly Orwellian video compilation of this disgrace went viral.
Still, I’m sure the reason my interview was killed had more to do with KRCR’s fealty to Mike Ramsey than anything else. After all, Ramsey spends a healthy portion of his time not doing his job but rather spinning out press releases that burnish his image and attack judges who don’t send defendants to prison for terms long enough to suit him.
In 2025, Ramsey sent out a staggering 105 press releases, or an average of two a week. This isn’t transparency. It’s tax-financed public relations, and the local media have become dependent on and beholden for all this single-sourced “news” delivered on a silver platter.
And if KRCR does Ramsey’s bidding, Action News Now’s relationship with Butte County’s 77-year-old, 40-year district attorney seems even more thickly incestuous. Action News Now, where Hayley Watts directs the news, ignored my lawsuit altogether.
One reporter for Action News Now, her journalistic education sorely lacking, was heard to proudly proclaim that she and Ramsey were “besties.” As someone who cut my journalistic teeth on the principle that members of the Fourth Estate should maintain an adversarial relationship with government, I found her mindset appalling though not particularly surprising, since everyone at Action News Now seems to be a pal with Butte’s most powerful politician.
In 2017, Desmond Phillips, a young Black man in mental crisis, was killed by two panicky young Chico PD officers, Alex Fliehr and Jeremy Gagnebin, in a barrage of 16 shots from their Glocks. The killing took place about 20 minutes after David Phillips, Desmond’s father, had called 911 for medical aid.
I won’t forget one haunting example of KRCR’s subservience to Ramsey. It was a few months after the Phillips slaying, and David Phillips had called a news conference at Chico’s Bethel AME Church. Covering the event was veteran TV reporter Jerry Olenyn, who at the time was carrying a camera for KRCR. As the news conference was closing, Olenyn asked a question in an unusually loud and aggressive manner. Olenyn’s persona was such that Lawrence Thompson, David Phillips’s cousin, began filming Olenyn with his phone. When I looked back at Olenyn, who was standing behind a camera in the sanctuary’s middle aisle, he looked irritated.
At my request, Thompson recently sent me the two-minute video he recorded after Olenyn yelled out. It shows Olenyn pointing his camera at members of the Justice for Desmond Phillips group as they talked with others. Both Olenyn and Watts from Action News Now tried to talk David Phillips and others into on-camera interview. After Olenyn’s disrespectful outburst, no one trusted the TV reporters enough to agree to one.
Call me old-fashioned, but, as a journalist, if I’m going to treat anyone as an adversary it’s going to be the government — and not the broken father of a young man killed with reckless brutality by the state.
So, what set Olenyn off? I have a pretty good idea:
- Seven hours after Desmond Phillips was gunned down in a chaotic police response, Mike Ramsey declared that the shooting was justified – “preliminarily.” He did so without the benefit of any video of the incident and before the killers were even interviewed. Legit prosecutors don’t announce the outcomes of investigations before they even begin, nor do they shape investigations to conform to predetermined outcomes. That’s the playbook of politicians such as Kristi Noem, JD Vance and Mike Ramsey.
- Several days after the killing, Ramsey, at a community meeting, basically accused David Phillips, the grieving father and only non-police witness to his son’s killing, of lying about seeing it happen. Other than Donald Trump, I’ve never seen such public cruelty from a politician. Later, Ramsey admitted that David did see his youngest child shot dead, but being the standup guy that he is, Ramsey buried the admission on the sixth page of a seven-page, single-spaced report. TV reporters don’t tend to read that far.
- In the weeks and months after the killing, Ramsey went out of his way to raise vague suspicions about David Phillips to reporters. I know because I am one of them. Every time I called Ramsey for details about Desmond’s killing, it was a variation on: David Phillips isn’t telling the truth … David Phillips hired an attorney … David Phillips won’t talk to “investigators.” Like he was supposed to trust Ramsey and his henchmen after the DA, without evidence, had exonerated his son’s killers.
When you realize how easily Ramsey moves his TV news pawns, Olenyn’s unprofessional outburst becomes a bit more fathomable.
As does local television’s refusal to cover a lawsuit that exposes their patron’s secrecy and negligence.
Dave Waddell writes about use of force by law enforcement in Butte County.