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TransparentNevada updates salary info

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:21:15 -0700

LAS VEGAS — Salary data for more than 132,000 government employees statewide, for the 2012 calendar year, is now available at TransparentNevada.com, a Nevada Policy Research Institute website that makes government-spending data easily accessible to taxpayers.
The new 2012 data — covering 58 government jurisdictions throughout Nevada, at state, county and city levels — includes several newly added jurisdictions.
“Thanks to the information available at TransparentNevada, Nevada’s citizens, lawmakers, and media members are now able to easily see exactly how much government employees take home in compensation,” said Andy Matthews, president of NPRI. “Many government employees make staggering amounts.”
“For instance, more than 1,200 government employees throughout the state received over $200,000 last year in total compensation,” he added. “That list ranges from a Henderson deputy police chief who made over $559,000, a Clark County assistant district attorney who took home more than $522,000, a Las Vegas IT director who received over $356,000 and a Washoe County district health officer making over $209,000.

Disaster planning: Are you ready?

Wed, 22 May 2013 09:15:05 -0700

No, we don’t have tornados like Oklahoma or hurricanes like the Gulf Coast, but Nevada is prone to wildfires and earthquakes that could threaten your newspaper’s operations when you least expect it.
Do you have a plan for where your paper would be printed if your plant was shut down by a natural disaster? Where would your news and sales staffs set up operations? How would you deliver? Would you be able to update your web site?
Update your disaster plan now.

Conservative and liberal owners

Thu, 2 May 2013 10:30:12 -0700

Over the course of a 30-year career, I believe I worked for more conservative newspaper owners and/or publishers than liberal ones. I say ‘believe’ because there were a couple I’m not sure what their politics were — nor am I sure they even read the newspaper they were responsible for.
Anyway, the count is pretty close to being evenly divided. So it is with some amusement and bewilderment that I read about the consternation caused at some Tribune properties over word that the Koch brothers may be interested purchasers.
Presumably, the Koch brothers — notorious for their conservative politics — would use the newspapers as part of a plot to sway the minds of readers to support their causes.
Fine. That’s the history of newspapers.
Perhaps the employees of the Chicago Tribune are unaware of the legacy of Col. McCormick. Perhaps the newsroom at the L.A. Times never heard of Harrison Gray Otis.
More likely, though, they believe that newspaper owners ought to be fair and balanced. (Yes, I use that phrase on purpose.) Sorry, but that’s both naive and inaccurate.
I believe newsrooms ought to be fair and balanced. I believe owners and/or publishers ought to do whatever they damn well please.
If reporters and editors believe they can’t work, in good conscience, under the person who signs their checks, then they have one option: Quit. Simple as that.
In my experience, however, it was never that simple. For one thing, few publishers or owners for whom I worked exerted much influence over day-to-day news coverage. The opinion pages were usually a different matter, but the reporters and news editors seldom paid much attention to what was written there anyway. When they did, it was in a contrarian kind of way — as in, ‘Is that really true? I’m going to find out.’
And the opinion editors sometimes paid little attention to what was being reported in the news columns. I clearly recall an instance in which I pointed out to the opinion-page editor that facts in her editorial that day were wrong, as reported in a front-page story the day before. Her response: ‘I have my own facts.’
If anything was shared by both my conservative and liberal publishers and/or owners, it was the desire to attract more readers and sell more advertising. Therefore, their initial reaction to anything was to find a way to not piss off too many people. Sometimes, it had to be done — the controversial editorial, the story embarrassing some civic bigwig. They bit the bullet (in the days when newspapers were still making piles of money.) Mostly, though, they tried not to lean too far right or left. Most of their readers and advertisers were somewhere in the middle.
In fact, this was the evolution of newspapers — from fiery mouthpieces for one particular party or another, to middle-of-the-road truth-seekers who could appeal to the broadest audience.
Somewhere along the line, though, many newspapers lost their personalities. Especially when group-owned, publicly traded newspapers across vast regions (or the whole country) became the dominant model. They reflected a corporate soul, which is to say no soul at all.
I’m all in favor of newspapers with personalities — right or wrong, but not indifferent. The problems arise when that personality does not fit the audience.
Would it make any sense for the Wall Street Journal’s opinion pages to be the voice of liberal Hollywood? Of course not.
So what would happen if the L.A. Times suddenly became the most arch-conservative newspaper in the country? What about the Chicago Tribune?
I don’t know if they’d attract readers or lose them. I don’t know if they’d make more money or less. I’m pretty sure the answers would be different for each, because they’re different cities. And I’m very sure that if the answer for either is that they’d lose readers and money, it would be a dumb move.
Besides, when I was an editor and, for about a decade, a writer of editorials, I was never much good at figuring out whether most hot-button local issues were conservative or liberal. Maybe I just didn’t care about the politics.
Honestly, though, when I was writing about sewer-rate increases or economic-development zoning, the winners and losers didn’t fall into categories that were easily defined as Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals.
The truth is, local politics — the kind that affect people the most directly — usually doesn’t fall into such broad generalizations.
And if the people running the newspaper and writing for the newspaper don’t understand the nuances of their local issues — the issues their readers care about most, the issues that are their franchise in local coverage — then the newspaper becomes irrelevant, regardless of the politics of the owner/publisher.

Breaking news in the internet age

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:12:50 -0700

As an old-school journalist, I’ve been watching the furor over internet and cable-news coverage of the Boston Marathon with a rather weary fascination.
So much bad information, so much static to sort out.
It’s as if everything that is said in a newsroom during a major breaking news story is being published, with a police scanner and CB radio blaring on your desk as you try to think it through. (I told you I was old-school.)
The job of a journalist — and of an editor — is to be skeptical, confirm facts and provide context. Ask questions, find answers.
Is that true? How do you know it’s true? What’s the source for this? Have you confirmed it with anybody else? Is there some angle we’re missing?
These are the kinds of questions editors ask of reporters before publishing a story, and the kinds of questions reporters anticipate when they’re newsgathering. And the rule was: When in doubt, leave it out.
Today, though, nothing gets left out. The news editor as ‘filter’ is seen, generally, as a bad thing — depriving the public of their ability to decide for themselves what’s true and what’s horse manure. People say (well, I’ve read it on the internet, anyway) that the old days of getting our news through the biased perspective of the mainstream media are gone forever. Everybody’s a journalist, it seems.
Well, everybody’s not a journalist. And a truism I’ve held for years is amplified in the era of ‘social media‘ — people are more likely to believe what their neighbor tells them than what they read on the front page of the newspaper.
I do believe in the fundamental principle behind the First Amendment’s protection of a free press and free speech: the marketplace of ideas, where the best ideas rise to the top. I would never argue that people should be told to shut up.
I’m not in favor of giving everybody a megaphone, either.

The 93-year-old paperboy

Mon, 4 Mar 2013 14:05:03 -0800

This New York Times feature on a 93-year-old paperboy in Winters, Calif., is a fun read, but makes the kind of assumptions that drive me crazy.
It contains this sentence:
‘Newt Wallace, who speaks about delivering newspapers the way some people speak of a first love, offers a glimpse into how important news delivery used to be.’
News delivery is still important. I’m willing to bet it’s very important for a 2,600-circulation weekly in a small California town.
I’m also pretty sure that not many other news outlets are much interested that a Winters High School player signed a letter of intent to Chadron State, or how to adopt a dog in Winters.
Local news is still relevant, so is the method of delivery.
By the way, Mr. Wallace is no ordinary paperboy. He’s the former owner of the paper.

The battle for New Orleans

Fri, 1 Mar 2013 10:34:15 -0800

Unlike a recent ’60 Minutes’ report, here’s a lengthy story in the Columbia Journalism Review that tries to get at the essence of what’s happening in New Orleans newspapering.
Some of it is depressingly familiar, but much of the piece by Ryan Chittum will get you thinking anew about where the industry is headed.

Lyon County papers to merge

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:00:54 -0800

The Mason Valley News and the Leader-Courier will merge into a single edition on March 6.
The Mason Valley News is famous for its front-page proclamation as the ‘only newspaper in the world that gives a damn about Yerington.’
The Leader-Courier covers Fernley. Both are located in Lyon County and owned by Gannett, which also owns the Reno Gazette-Journal.
Publisher Dave Sanford said the combined edition will offer both readers and advertisers better coverage of the county.
Total circulation is about 4,200 households.

Free Press publisher heads to Chicago

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 13:50:17 -0800

Elko Daily Free Press Publisher John Pfeifer, who is also a member of the Nevada Press Association board, is headed to a new job with Gatehouse Media in Chicago.
Here’s the story.
Pfeifer has been publisher of both the Elko paper and the Times-News in nearby (by Nevada standards) Twin Falls, Idaho.
Nancy Streets, also a former NPA board member, recently moved to Elko from the Sparks Tribune to take the advertising manager post there. She will be rejoining the NPA board as the Elko representative in Pfeifer’s place.

New editor for the Appeal

Wed, 6 Feb 2013 09:21:38 -0800

Brian Sandford started today as editor of the Nevada Appeal.
He has been night city editor for the Olympian and Tacoma News Tribune in Washington.

Reno city editor dies

Thu, 3 Jan 2013 08:42:03 -0800

Michael Martinez, 59, city editor and reporter at the Reno Gazette-Journal, died suddenly on Wednesday.
Here’s the obituary.
Martinez was at the RGJ for 12 years and had a varied career, including a two-year stint as the voice of Tito Jackson on the ABC ‘Jackson Five’ Saturday morning cartoon.
Services are pending. He is survived by his wife, Wynona, and son Bryant.