journalism

Sagebrush journalism was a style of literature born in the American West that had some very deep roots in Virginia City. It came to life around 1860 and had run its course by the turn of the 20th century. In that ensuing 40 year time period some Sagebrushers became world renown.

Given the advances in media, photo and printing technology, publishing a yearbook has never been easier for schools, clubs and organizations. But this same technology offers so many choices and alternatives that the process of beginning or updating a yearbook program can appear overwhelming. "How to Advise Yearbook" is a new course offered this spring in Carson City through the Western Nevada College's Community Education department and is designed to give aspiring and novice yearbook advisers a solid grounding in the theory and application of modern yearbooking.

We've been getting many calls and emails asking about what happened to Nevada Appeal Editor Dennis Noone, whose name has been stripped from the newspaper's masthead.

Two sources inside the newspaper report that Noone, who was hired a little more than a year ago, was let go on or about Aug. 10. As for why this happened, we don't know, as personnel matters like this are private, and the Appeal has not released any information about it.

I want to take a break from the news to talk a little inside baseball about Carson Now and what's happening here.

On Monday I was notified that I had been selected for a John S. Knight Journalism Fellowship at Stanford University for the 2012-13 school year. It's an amazing opportunity to further the work I have done with Carson Now, at the top school in the world for Internet innovation. Situated in Silicon Valley, it's where Google, Yahoo! and more than 5,000 other companies were born.

The Carson Area Marketing & PR Network (CAMPN) meets at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 4 at the Business Resource Innovation Center (BRIC) located at 108 E. Proctor Street in Carson City. The meeting is free and non-members who are marketing, PR, or journalism professionals may attend with advance notice.
Marketing and public relations professionals in the northern Nevada region will be recognized and selected CAMPN members will offer presentations highlighting specialties and services that they provide to clients.

March 7, 2012 - Carson Area Marketing & PR Network

The Carson Area Marketing & PR Network (CAMPN) meets at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 7 at the Business Resource Innovation Center (BRIC) building at 108 E. Proctor Street in Carson City. The meeting is free and non-members who are marketing, PR, or journalism professionals may attend with advance notice.

Candace Duncan, Executive Director of Carson City Convention and Visitors Bureau will present the important impact of sports in the Carson City region and how social media is utilized in marketing tourism.

February 1, 2012 - Carson Area Marketing & PR Network

The Carson Area Marketing & PR Network (CAMPN) meets at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 1 at the Business Resource Innovation Center (BRIC) building at 108 E. Proctor Street in Carson City. The meeting is free and non-members who are marketing, PR, or journalism professionals may attend with advance notice.

Marketing and PR professionals will discuss and share best practices during a brainstorming and networking session for all members and guests as 2012 greets us with new opportunities and new challenges.

CARSON CITY – Reno Republican Assemblyman Pat Hickey was unanimously elected today to be the new GOP Assembly Caucus Leader.

The former minority Leader, Pete Goicoechea, R-Eureka, stepped down because of his intention to run for the Nevada State Senate in District 19.

Assembly Republicans currently hold 16 seats in the 42-member Assembly, while Democrats control 26 seats.

Hickey, who represents District 25 in Reno, returned to the Assembly in 2010 after an absence of several years.

For bad luck Friday the 13th news, let's start with the hundreds of down-on-their-luck kids who are enrolling in the Carson City School District's Students in Transition program for children without permanent homes. The director of the program, Peggy Sweetland, estimates there will be 650 kids who qualify this year. To quote the "newspaper": "That number is nearly triple the 333 students enrolled at the end of last year." (Don't be too hard on the reporter who wrote this. If journalists like us were any good at math, we would be working in jobs that paid a lot better than journalism.) The program runs on federal grants and donations. Those interested in contributing can call Sweetland at (775) 283-1537.

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The city's long-planned multi-use athletic center is scheduled to be completed by fall 2013, according to Parks and Rec Director Roger Moellendorf. The $5.8 million that will be used to build the 42,000 square foot facility behind the Western Nevada Boys and Girls Club on Russell Way comes from voter-approved Question 18 funds.

Have a fun Friday the 13th. Don't walk under any ladders.

The movie "The Rum Diary," currently housed at the Fandango Galaxy cineplex in Carson City, Stars Johnny Depp an roving journalist. It's based on the book of the same name by Hunter S. Thompson, a '60s star of the gonzo brand of journalism. To a large extent the film is a tribute to Thompson and is so noted at the end.

Film opens with Depp as Paul Kemp recovering from a hangover in what turns out to be a hotel room in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He's unshaven, bleery-eyed and is at once nasty to the bellman who brings his breakfast to the room.

There are many people who remember where they were and what they were doing when they found out that John Lennon had died. Others remember the death of JFK with similar sadness, the memory sharp and untouched after nearly 50 years.

"The Help," currently playing at the Fandango Galaxy cineplex in Carson City, is a welcome relief from such summer films as the ugly "Change-Up." No explosions, no car chases, no exploitive scenes for the teens among us. Instead it's a portrait of life in Mississippi in the 1960s and the near-infinite gap between the whites and their black maids and cooks.

By Andrew Barbano
RENO, Nev. — Longtime Nevada civil rights leader Mary Valencia Wilson, 66, died at Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno shortly after midnight of Friday, June 10. She suffered from complications after a long battle with cancer.

“Confessions of a Paper Pimp,” by Sam Bauman. Slalom Press, 2011. Hard copy available at Amazon, $18.95; Kindle version, $10.

By Guy W. Farmer

Carson City attorney Wally Earhart will portray President Lincoln and deliver the Comstock Historical Lecture at the revival of Virginia City's Bonanza Days on March 5.

He will be joined by the Comstock Civil War Re-enactors who will assist in hosting the dinner in character. The Marshall Mint will premiere the first strike of its new Big Bonanza commemorative silver coin at the event.

By Andrew Doughman / Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – A coffee shop across the street from the Legislature announces “let the games begin.”
With the Legislature in session for less than two weeks, Democratic legislators seem to be playing the game well.

CARSON CITY – Mention government transparency and “Twitter” probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind.
A communication technology that gives users 140 characters to share where they just had lunch or “Tweet” trivia about the weather and celebrities doesn’t immediately scream “politics” either.
But Nevada state legislators, lobbyists and journalists are finding more and more use in Twitter because the platform allows information gathering and governing at high speed.

If you place X's on a map of Nevada to mark areas used for nuclear testing and O's to mark areas examined as potential nuclear sites, you end up with a tic-tac-toe game board in the shape of the Silver State, says Western Nevada College Emeritus English Professor Michon Mackedon.

With a 23-year background in gaming and marketing, Tropicana Entertainment has named Jef Bauer as general manager of MontBleu Resort Casino & Spa at Lake Tahoe.

“Northern Nevada has been a second home to me throughout my career and I’m glad to call South Shore, a destination that I have always loved, my new home,” said Bauer, 45. “I plan to be involved in the community while seizing new opportunities with special events to position MontBleu and South Tahoe as the place to play, dine and game.”

There is an interesting discussion going on over at the Nevada Appeal site concerning the Nugget Project.

The story begins two week ago when Guy Farmer wrote a rather harsh column that slammed the Nugget Project. In response, last week there was a guest column by Michael Douglass criticizing Farmer's take on the subject.

A Carson City man faces a gross misdemeanor domestic battery charge after he allegedly urinated and spit on his living room floor and then punched his girlfriend in the chest.

The 31-year-old unemployed man was booked on suspicion of second offense domestic battery and was jailed on $5,000 bail.

According to the arrest narrative, deputies were dispatched to the 2000 block of Hawaii Circle in reference to a report of a domestic battery.

By Sean Whaley, Nevada News Bureau
CARSON CITY – Former Nevada governor and state Republican Committeeman Bob List yesterday called on Sen. Harry Reid to stop running a television ad claiming to have saved a school teacher’s job with federal stimulus funds.

CARSON CITY – The popular Governor’s Conference on Tourism will return in December after a two-year hiatus, Gov. Jim Gibbons and Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki announced today.
The conference put on by the Nevada Commission on Tourism, NCOT, had been put on hold due to budget limitations.

Since a lot of people in Carson City know me from my political column that ran for four years in the Nevada Appeal, many asked if Carson Now would follow along the same philosophical slant.

The answer is no. But is Carson Now an "objective" news source? No way.

As someone who enjoys politics and has friends all over the political spectrum, I set out to make Carson Now open to all viewpoints. Anyone can sign up for an account and write whatever they want, subject only to keeping the content PG rated so as not to offend our younger viewers.

Community news belongs to the community.

This is the concept that led me to develop Carson Now, the idea that for a news organization to truly serve the community, it needed to belong to the community.

Part of this idea comes from my experience of being on the front lines as corporate media cutbacks resulted in communities not being well served in terms of news coverage.

So my idea was to create Carson Now as a nonprofit organization, whose mission was limited to serving the community. Nonprofit media organizations are a fairly new development, with sites like Voice of San Diego and MinnPost leading the way.

Provided to Carson Now

STATELINE — MontBleu Resort Casino & Spa at Lake Tahoe has announced new additions to its executive staff.

Woody Allen in his

Whowuddathunk? Miss Sarah, the charming storyteller and patron saint of the Tea Party, actually did get one thing right in her speech at the Tea Party convention last week.

Sports fodder for a Friday morning . . .