Christine Stanwood Returns to Phoenix TV as Arizona's Family Consumer Investigative Reporter

PHOENIX — The Valley's television talent carousel took another spin this week — and for once, the spin landed back home.

Christine Stanwood, the former ABC15 anchor and reporter who left Phoenix in March 2025, is back on Valley television as the consumer investigative reporter at Arizona's Family — the Gray Television-owned KTVK/KPHO duopoly — starting Thursday, Oct. 1, The Arizona Republic reported Oct. 5. She wasted no time describing how the move feels.

"I'm pumped... I'm really, really pumped," Stanwood told The Arizona Republic. She called Arizona's Family "the dream station, legitimately... This is where we want to be."

The Tulsa detour

Stanwood's return closes a loop that began when she departed ABC15 in March 2025. She landed in Tulsa, Oklahoma, as the main morning anchor at KJRH — a station owned by the E.W. Scripps Company — taking one of the most visible chairs in that market. It didn't last. In August, Scripps announced massive layoffs across its station group, including at KJRH, and Stanwood's position was eliminated.

"I never thought it would happen to me," she told The Arizona Republic, describing the shock of the cut. For a veteran anchor with a decade of experience, the layoff was a jolt — but also, in retrospect, the opening that led her back to the Valley. She called the new role "a really lateral decision," one that adds to her decade of experience rather than restarting it.

The move shifts her from the anchor desk to the investigative beat — a transition that plays to the part of the job she says matters most. Stanwood described the new role as "a tangible way to serve our community and get real results," a framing that fits the consumer-investigation format: real people, real problems, cameras rolling.

The On Your Side beat

At Arizona's Family, Stanwood will work alongside veteran reporter Susan Campbell on the station's "On Your Side" consumer unit. Her investigations will air across KTVK and KPHO newscasts, beginning mid-October, according to TVNewsCheck.

The résumé she brings with her is deep. Stanwood has won two regional Emmy Awards — one for military news reporting, one for anchoring team coverage — and her career includes some of the biggest sports stages in the country: she covered the Arizona Cardinals' playoff run in Los Angeles and the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl win at State Farm Stadium in Glendale. The consumer-investigation beat asks for a different muscle — accountability reporting, document digging, holding powerful interests to account — but the through line is the same: telling viewers what actually happened.

Debbie Bush, Arizona's Family's vice president and general manager, framed the hires in exactly those terms: "Charly and Christine are exceptional journalists whose track records of accountability reporting, breaking news leadership and community connection speak for themselves," TVNewsCheck reported.

The second hire: Charly Edsitty

Stanwood wasn't the only name in the announcement. Charly Edsitty, a Glendale native and Baylor University graduate, is joining Arizona's Family to co-anchor Good Morning Arizona on weekday mornings from 4:30 to 6 a.m. alongside Colton Shone — a pairing described by TVNewsCheck as the first known all-Native American anchor team on a commercial television newscast in the country.

Edsitty arrives with serious national-reporting credentials from her previous stop at KTRK in Houston. Her coverage there included the El Paso Walmart mass shooting, the George Floyd memorial service in Houston, President George H.W. Bush's state funeral, and major Texas storms — the kind of assignment list that defines a career. A Glendale native coming home to anchor mornings is the kind of hire that plays well in any market; pairing her with Shone to make broadcasting history adds a national dimension to a local story.

What it means for Valley viewers

For viewers, the two hires amount to a meaningful investment by Gray Television in its Phoenix duopoly. Stanwood's consumer investigations give Arizona's Family a fresh face on its accountability beat just as the Valley's consumer-fraud stories keep multiplying, and Edsitty's arrival reshapes the station's morning lineup with a historic pairing.

And for Stanwood, the through line is personal. Less than two months after losing her job in a corporate layoff she never saw coming, she's back in the market where she made her name — on the beat she says she's most excited about. "I'm pumped," she said. She doesn't sound like she's faking it.

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