We’re so lucky

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

I was thinking over a sermon I heard given by Bill West at The Bridge church on Foster Drive. A big chunk of it was about gratitude, since it was Thanksgiving weekend. Anyway, I was sitting there kinda half thinking about all the things I have to be grateful for, half composing this editor’s note in my head, and half engaged in the sermon.

I was thinking how tenuous the mainstream media’s hold onto power is in this day and age. And I was thinking a huge part of that tenuocity related to the arrogance of the mainstream news media, and the huge sense of entitlement it exhibits in the way stories are done, competition is dealt with, and customers are handled. The mainstream media really feels like it holds the power in the media-consumer relationship. The bottom line is the mainstream media appears ungrateful and dismissive of its consumers.

Anyway, I just wanted to say I hope as we’ve matured as a newspaper, we haven’t lost the personal relationships and responsiveness we’ve always had with our readers. And I hope you guys all know how much we here at the World Headquarters of the Reno News & Review appreciate all you do for us. I mean, I remember the days when the Gazette started that little Calendar thing specifically to kill us, and I remember their business practices designed to pull the oxygen out of the air for all the competition—and you guys were here for us.

There are many of you who supported us right from the beginning: calling in story ideas, getting us your events, talking us up with your friends, advertising—sometimes just calling to say, “Good job.”

Anyway, without sounding all saccharine and weepy, I just wanted to thank you while the thought was in my head. I’m sure I’ll get back to my sense of privilege as the lucky head of Northern Nevada’s finest alt-weekly any second now.