These three things
Welcome to this week's Reno News & Review.
Our entry period for our first poetry contest will end Feb. 28. We've had a really large response. While I've only read poems when the circumstances warranted it—like when they've been incorrectly submitted—it seems as though the poetry I have read hasn't been horrible. Anyway, for the rules and how to correctly enter, see the ad on page 29.
***
I'm dismayed by people who propose to teach without knowing the subject matter. I'm taking an online social media and journalism class in which an instructor made a restrictive statement about ethics that's just wrong. Ethics are part of a code, not a synonym for morality. For example, ethical lawyers can do things, like defend rapists and murderers, that I would find immoral. Ethical scientists can do things, like spray perfume in bunnies' eyes, that I would find immoral. Ethical journalists can do things, like bring hesitant victims into the public eye, that I find immoral but would do in a heartbeat. So don't tell me a journalist is unethical or a practice is ethically mandated, unless you can point at the tenet on a Code of Ethics to which that particular journalist subscribes. Otherwise, I'm ethically required to tell you you're ignorant.
***
There are communities within communities within communities. I consider my community northwestern Nevada and northeastern California, and I consider everyone in it part of my community. Just stick a compass in my head and inscribe a circle with a 100-mile radius. That includes people I've never met. I make almost all my editorial decisions based on this simple premise.
While it's possible that someone in Calcutta, Sydney or New York City may opt into our virtual community, I don't care what they think of what we do here in Reno. I don't care if they read us online; I don't care if they like us on Facebook. I care about our local artists, businesses, readers and haters. I like having a lot of readers, but I don't care to struggle to engage big numbers of irrelevant people.
