In Arizona, Phoenix news/talker KTAR-FM (92.3) pre-empted its local computer show at noon on Saturday (January 8) and soon had weekday talkhost Bruce St. James on the air, backed up by weekday news staffers who responded to the breaking news. Several of them were traveling from Phoenix to Tucson to follow the story all weekend long. At Phoenix talker KFYI (550), regular morning host Jim Sharpe was on the air with interviews and more details. In Tucson itself, you can follow the online coverage of talk KNST here.

The breaking news is the mass shooting at a Tucson supermarket that claimed the lives of six people, including a 9-year-old girl and a federal judge. Democratic Congressional representative Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords was doing a meet-and-greet, says the Los Angeles Times, when she and others were ambushed by a 22-year-old man using a pistol and an extra-large clip. As many as 20 shots were fired, and in addition to the six people killed, 12 others were wounded. Those include Rep. Giffords, who was shot in the head, but did not immediately die.

On the network side, ABC News Radio quickly compiled a one-hour special Saturday night at 7:06pm Eastern, with re-feeds available the next three hours. Salem Radio Network VP/News & Talk Programming Tom Tradup calls the shootings shocking, and says "the prayers of each of our SRN hosts go out to Giffords' husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, her family and those were killed or wounded in this senseless killing." Tradup says he met Giffords in 2005 when she was a state senator helping with refugees from Hurricane Katrina.

The Phoenix Board of Radio-Info.com is talking about the shootings here.
On the Tucson Board, there's some strong commentary about how local Tucson stations reacted - here.