John Hook, the longest-serving news anchor in FOX 10 Phoenix history, is retiring after 33 years at KSAZ-TV, the station announced. Hook will deliver his final broadcast on September 14, 2026, closing out a 43-year broadcasting career that took him from small radio stations in Arizona to the anchor desk of one of the state’s most-watched newscasts.
Hook joined the FOX 10 news team in August 1993, according to FOX 10 Phoenix, arriving just before the station completed its transition from KTSP-TV into a Fox affiliate in 1994. The station itself traces back to October 1953, when it first went on the air as KOOL-TV, according to Wikipedia. When Hook arrived, he co-anchored weekend broadcasts alongside Linda Williams, another veteran Phoenix anchor who herself retired from FOX 10 in January 2024 after more than three decades at the station, per a Facebook post from Williams.
A Career Built on Breaking News and Big Interviews
Hook’s on-air career began in 1983 as a reporter and anchor at KARZ/KOOL Radio in Phoenix, per the station’s account of his career, before he moved on to news director duties at KBBT Radio in Casa Grande, Arizona, and later worked at KREX-TV in Grand Junction, Colorado. He returned to Arizona in 1985 to anchor and report for KVOA-TV in Tucson before eventually landing back in Phoenix. Over the decades that followed, the station notes, he reported live from Candlestick Park during the 1989 San Francisco earthquake, filed dispatches from Northridge, California hours after the 1994 quake, and covered the O.J. Simpson murder trial in Los Angeles.
His political résumé is similarly deep: Hook moderated the nationally broadcast 2000 Republican primary debate at Gammage Auditorium, tracked national politics across seven presidential primaries, and anchored coverage of 14 national political conventions. He interviewed Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump, including a 2011 sit-down with Obama at the White House, and covered both of Senator John McCain’s presidential bids. He also covered the funerals of Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and John McCain, and reported on the impeachments of Arizona Gov. Evan Mecham and President Bill Clinton, according to the station.
Sports, Cold Cases and a National Political Stage
Sports fans in the Valley likely recognize Hook from his coverage of four Super Bowls, three World Series, two NBA Finals, and the 1997 Rose Bowl between Arizona State and Ohio State. He also covered the Arizona Diamondbacks’ World Series run against the backdrop of the September 11 attacks. Beyond sports and politics, Hook spent years investigating one of the country’s most notorious unsolved celebrity murders, the 1978 killing of actor Bob Crane…