Rachel Dahl
This week has been about 27 days of working through all the processes of integrating five local newspapers into a smooth-running system that can be as efficient as possible while still providing community-specific local news across Northern Nevada.
Much of what we're doing has gone really well with glimpses of brilliance.
Some of what we're doing has been glaringly awful and really embarrassing. Like forgetting to get papers dropped off at the TA off the Mill City exit in spite of driving past it with newspapers in the car, no less than three times, and having to send someone back out from Fallon for their second trip of the day, taking newspapers north.
The reception to this grand experiment has been really supportive and gratifying, both from the individual communities and the many readers who have caught us with thanks, as well as from the Nevada community as a whole, and we are more grateful than you can imagine.
Ironically, the University of Nevada School of Journalism released a study last week that it has been working on for the past few years: The Project for the Revitalization of Local News.
The goals of the project are to provide news coverage in Nevada communities that have experienced a reduction in local media, organize professional meetings for news leaders to develop strategies for enhancing and sustaining local service, organize public events to raise community awareness of the decline of local journalism, and conduct academic research to assess the provision of local news in Nevada.
We were invited to participate in their community meetings and shook our heads at the hand-wringing as we struggled along, providing local community news. We also participated in their survey, but we can't tell in the report if it is our communities that are recognized as being served. We are a little tongue in cheek as we celebrate the expansion of local journalism in Nevada at the same time this academic work is released, and I would be lying if I said I didn't take a little bit of pleasure in being "An oasis in the Rural Nevada News Desert," wishing the University wasn't so out of touch. It would be nice if they were celebrating too.
Besides all this we've had to make a few hard decisions along with all the fun decisions. Because we already had The Pershing Post established and running pretty well with significant community support, we decided to combine the masthead with the Lovelock Review Miner, in the grand tradition of newspapers. But we also have to keep the Great Basin Sun because of the postal permit, so it was getting ridiculously crowded at the top of the page.
What makes the most sense, as much as I hate to do it, is to retire The Pershing Post, which has served as an important bridge in getting us down the road to local, community news. Because we're also sentimental and respect our heritage it makes more sense to keep the Lovelock Review Miner so that's what we've done with this week's paper.
I'm a little sad to see it go, but the annals of Nevada Newspapering are littered with retired newspaper titles, and The Pershing Post will rest nobly with the many respectable publications that have documented our collective history.
So, while we wax nostalgic, laugh at the silliness of academia, and push forward in our mission, we'll always be right here...
...Keeping you Posted.
Rach
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