The U.S. will celebrate Newspaper Week starting, and we have some thoughts.
First, the week’s name is a misnomer. Newspapers barely exist; they’ve been supplanted by digital news publications. We’re still surprised when people call us a “newspaper.”
We’re celebrating 15 years in existence this year, and in digital journalism terms, that makes us among the (kind of) early adopters who saw that print news was going the way of the dodo.
Nevertheless, people persist in their ways, and despite the organization’s name, we were eventually allowed to become members of the Nevada Press Association. (We’re also members of two national organizations: the Online News Association and the Local Independent Online News Publishers.) There’s only one printing press in the state suitable for publishing newspapers. Those sticking with print often send their publications out of state to get printed.
They’ll be doing less of that in the future. While print will likely never completely die, organizations like state press associations are experiencing identity crises because the news industry continues to abandon print. What’s common now is a more bifurcated and dispersed media ecosystem that appeals to niche audiences. Some fill the gap left by downsized newsrooms while others produce news in their own new ways.
We are among them. We’re local, and our original reporting focuses on Reno. We’ll occasionally cover regional or statewide issues if those topics are not being covered elsewhere, but our mission—while refined over the years—has largely remained the same.
What sets us apart from most other local media are two things. First, our business ownership is actually based here. This is exceedingly rare. Out-of-state corporations own all local TV stations producing news. The Reno Gazette Journal is owned by a sullied corporate media giant known for slashing and burning staff and resources.
Second, we’re committed to transparency. There’s a disturbing trend among other online publications that refuse to identify who authors their reports. Also egregious are media outlets that refuse to identify their funding sources and their corporate parents.
We think both are weak. While anonymous authorship can occasionally serve a legitimate purpose, media websites that shun transparency while lobbing stones at others—often carelessly—embody an inherently cheap, unfair approach. Masks become convenient weapons, and readers are at a disadvantage.
We’ll defend writers and content creators to publish news how they wish, as consistent with the First Amendment. But people deserve to know who reports their news, especially in an industry desperately in need of greater credibility and transparency.
We fail to see why such sources should be taken seriously, or trusted. The news business has enough challenges as it is.
—Kristen Hackbarth & Bob Conrad
