••• Nevada Journalist

There are few things more intimidating or terrifying than living in a foreign land, a stranger to native customs and unable to speak the language.
I know. I did it.
When I was 21, I moved to Ecuador to live for 18 months as a missionary.
I was greeted at the airport with a friendly, “bienvenido.” (It means “welcome,” but to me it sounded like nothing more than gibberish.)
Si, I replied.
Perhaps it is because of this experience, or maybe just because. But I’m interested in understanding the transition immigrants must go through when they come to this land of plenty.
I wonder, too, how that will shape our future.
As the immigration debate continues, it seems the gap between American-born citizens and immigrants, particularly Hispanics, widens.
I want to see if there is a way to bridge that gap.
So I’ve come up with an idea.
Perhaps nowhere is the division so obvious as it is in Incline Village, where the rich are really rich, and the poor equally so. And the economic division is typically drawn down lines of ethnicity.
As my project for this semester in the journalism graduate program at the University of Nevada, Reno, I will be working with middle school students from the Lake Tahoe town.
My plan is to work with a dozen seventh-graders, equally split down ethnicity, and teach them the basics of journalism.
They’ll photograph and write about their own lives, then work with each other to edit their work.
In the process, I hope, they will learn something from and about one another. What it’s like to walk a mile in each other’s shoes, or zapatos, so to speak.
And as they learn from one another, maybe we can learn something from them.
Check back here to see their work and progress.

I went to lunch recently with some print and broadcast journalists.

The overwhelming sentiment was that while they loved news and chasing the story, they didn’t think they could continue to suffer the declining culture of the newsroom.

Journalists know the industry is changing. The problem is we don’t know exactly why or how or if we can change with it. But we have to do something. That is evident in the thousands of blogs springing up by reporters, photographers and the news organizations themselves.

It’s transforming the issues of free speech and press. Publishing is no longer an elite ability. As Rebecca MacKinnon said, “We are entering an era in which professionals have lost their monopoly over information — not just the reporting of it, but also what’s important for the public to know.” Anybody can publish anything, and rather than trying to fight that notion, some are starting to embrace it.

I couldn’t find a particular site I thought was doing a really great job at harnessing public opinion and fostering conversation. But I did find people who are trying.

Nicole Stockdale, a copy editor at the Dallas Morning News, has a blog, A Capital Idea at http://nstockdale.blogspot.com/, where she talks about journalism in general and grammar, specifically. That’s in addition to the blog she does for the newspaper. That’s the model I’d like to follow. Eventually, I’d like to maintain both a personal and professional blog.

This blog I’ve started as part of my studies and the Reynold’s School of Journalism would continue to serve as my personal blog. For now, as I am studying interactive environmental journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, I’ll try to focus both professional and personal goals on this one site.

What I don’t have now that I should develop is a connection to Tahoe. However, I recently did a story on a couple, Dave and Robin Rittenhouse, who try to live a low-impact lifestyle.

Robin expressed interest in doing her own blog to discuss ideas on green living. We could do something in conjunction in that realm.

As for future goals, I’d like a professional site to discuss the stories I’m working on. It would be great if I could find a way to open up the process of reporting to the public and get feedback before publication. For instance, the final project Liz Margerum and I did focusing on the problems presented by little snowfall in the Sierra and solutions some have found, could have benefited from comments before the story was published rather than after.

Paul Grabowicz talks about the role a journalist’s blog can play, “Web logs bring journalists into the larger community: … we need to drop grandiose claims of being aloof, objective observers and be more transparent about how we do our jobs.” I’d like to create a relationship with readers where we could talk about stories throughout the process. It can only make the process better when sources are shared early on, as well as the intention of the story.

I’m not ready to drop the ideal of objectivity, although I understand it is an ideal and can never truly be attained. However, I wouldn’t mind sharing my struggles with remaining objective. Often, I react one way, but upon further reflection, can find more depth in a story. I don’t think revealing that struggle would make me less credible. In fact, I think transparency leads to greater trust. And when there is mutual trust, it can be easier to find the truth — which I think is the standard of journalism.

I’d also like to continue this personal blog, where I can write about the people and places that are important to Nevada, as well as share my memories of growing up in rural areas of the state. It would be a sort of blend between journalism and creative writing, and hopefully, a conversation.

The best example I could find of good communication was Reno Baby at http://renonv.ning.com/, where bloggers are joined in one site.

Talking to other journalists, it seems clear that journalism is, if not in a crisis, then a major transition. Reno Baby can serve as a model as a type of place where journalists could converge to talk about improving and transforming the craft. And the dialogue should not be limited to professionals only. Blogs provide the forum where people can come together to share ideas and when ideas are shared, new ones spring forth.

We’re all looking for solutions. Let’s begin with a conversation.

As kids, summertime meant an endless freedom — a freedom I didn’t understand then. I didn’t realize it would all end someday.

I grew up outside of Elko County on a ranch secluded from cars, houses and television. My phone number was North Fork 6427. Friends never called — their parents didn’t believe them when they told them my number, plus it was long distance.

But I didn’t need friends. I had sisters. Three of them. All equally rambunctious and ratty haired. Mom tried to convince us to comb our hair at least once a day so it wouldn’t be so bad when she tried to fix it Sunday for church. We could never quite make it happen.

At night, we slept with the cool summer breeze blowing through the curtains into the bedroom. Through the open window, we could hear horse hooves clomping over the wooden bridge and sounds of them chomping on the meadow that doubled as our front lawn.

At the first hint of dawn, we were up. We dressed in the short shorts of the early 80s. Shoes and shirts were reserved for going to town.

We’d grab the bridles we’d hidden under our beds (We were supposed to keep them in the barn) and catch our horses. We’d spend most of the rest of the day horseback. Sometimes we played games — a mounted version of cops and robbers — and other times we just sat under the big tree out front.

It was under that tree we told each other our secrets and wondered what it would be like when we had to wear bras and, therefore, shirts. We laughed … knowing that day would never come.

We also practiced our tricks. Sliding off the rump of the horse, standing upright on it’s back, jumping on without using a step.

Nothing spectacular ever happened, but I’ve yet to find any place I like quite as much as under that tree sitting bareback on my appaloosa, Lewey.

Calling it an “unwritten chapter in Nevada’s history,” Guy Clifton recently penned the account of boxer Jack Dempsey’s time in the Silver State.

He debuted his fourth book, “Dempsey in Nevada,” at a signing party Saturday at Sundance Bookstore in Reno, where nearly 100 copies were sold.

Clifton said he spent two years researching and writing the story of the champion boxer who learned to fight as a drifter, leaving his Colorado home at 16 and traveling West by freight train.

But it wasn’t Dempsey’s fame that attracted the crowd.

A third-generation Nevadan who grew up in Gabbs and graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno, Clifton, a senior writer at the Reno Gazette-Journal, has a following, both personal and professional.

“We’re proud of him,” said Troy Weyer, who went to Gabbs High School with Clifton. “The whole town’s proud of him. He’s respectable.”

Troy’s wife, Lori, said she was looking forward to reading the book. She was sure it was going to be a good read.

“Guy’s a good friend and a great writer,” she said.

Clifton said even Dempsey enthusiasts will learn something in the book.

For example, one of Dempsey’s mining partners, Tex Hall, in Midas, was later convicted and served time in prison for harboring gangster Baby Face Nelson.

Dempsey was also elected as a delegate to the 1932 Nevada Republican Convention from the Mount Rose District of Reno.

Jeff Eckert, originally from San Diego, Calif., roomed with Clifton, Weyer and Cliff Raymond — all from Gabbs — at UNR.

Eckert said he gained an appreciation for Gabbs, a recently unincorporated town they describe as having three bars but no stoplight, during that time. And he gained an appreciation for Guy Clifton.

“We used to kid him and call him ‘nice guy Clifton,’” Eckert said.

The book, he said, was more than a tribute to a world-class boxer.

“Now that Guy’s achieved this, it’s kind of like a Cinderella story — little Guy from Gabbs.”

Clifton will hold another book signing this Saturday from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Borders in Carson City.

I spent nearly two years with Mary Reasoner, a methamphetamine addict, and following her through her struggles to get clean. It ended up, she didn’t. Instead, she went to prison for burglary.Last Sunday, photographer Brad Horn and I went to the Silver Springs Correctional Center to visit her. She was good. She was clean.

It’s amazing how different she is when she’s sober. She’s articulate, thoughtful and has her priorities straight.

I hope she can continue. I really do.

Read the whole story.

I’ve been working on a story about a couple who tries to live a low-impact life, which has got me thinking green this Christmas.

There’s been some talk of “green” gifts, designed to have less impact on the environment. Critics say it’s an oxymoron. Consuming is by its very nature, in opposition to nature.

I’m not sure. How much giving is too much?

So what are you doing?

Click here to take my survey.

My sister called me the other day. She lives in South Fork, outside of Elko.

She told me she woke up that morning to find three coyotes surrounding her aged blue heeler, Katie. When screaming failed to scare the scavengers away, she handed her 9-month-old baby to her 8-year-old son, grabbed a shotgun and fired several times.

She thinks she may have grazed one of the coyotes — she didn’t have her contacts in. But Katie was spared another day to die slowly in peace in the back yard.

I’m confused about this story.

On one hand, I admire the sort of frontier mentality my sister has to raise five kids and countless chickens, horses and dogs in a remote area of the state, but on the other hand, I’m really glad it’s not me.

Growing up in an even more remote setting, I came to appreciate early on the unlikely beauty of the vast Nevada desert. But I also know how hot that sun can burn on top of a John Deere tractor. I also know how alkali dust can sting wind-burned lips and settle in your throat, watching the sun rise on horseback and watching it set from that same horse’s back.

They’re memories I cherish. Because they’re memories.

I admire the people who live in Nevada’s rugged landscape. It’s not an easy life. Too hard for me.

I also admire the miners, the teachers, the politicians, business leaders and community members here.

While I may not be the one to serve all these functions, I want to be the one to record them. To tell the stories of your lives.

I am a Nevada journalist.