Decisions

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

At least once every week, somewhere in the paper, we’re confronted with a tough, terrible decision: Do we, or do we not, write about Trump?

Every week, he gets the knuckles cracking of every columnist and editorial writer in the nation. It’s really easy to want to jump into that fray, to be on the right side, to clearly align ourselves with Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “arc of the moral universe” which ever-so-slowly “bends toward justice.” We want the future to know we weren’t bamboozled. We want to fly the outrage flag high.

But really, what would that accomplish here in our little podunk of the media landscape? It would give easy fodder to the folks who like to toss out the “liberal rag” appellation, which we couldn’t shake even if we printed—free in every issue!—dollar bills imprinted with the faces of Ronald Reagan and Strom Thurmond.

During editing, it occurred to us that our editorial is probably one of the only ones in the country this week that isn’t about Helsinki and that ridiculous press conference, followed by Trump’s weaselly explanation that he misspoke when he said he didn’t see any reason why Russia would meddle in the U.S. election.

Instead, we have an editorial about the unfortunate evolution of the University of Nevada, Reno.

It’s important that we try to keep our focus local. We’re not the world wide web, we’re the Reno News & Review. Sure, we have to confront the planet’s problems but we also have to confront our local problems.

Instead of a Trump Tale of the Week, we could launch a Local Landlord Horror Story of the Week column. Every week, we hear stories about rising rents or tenants getting asked to move out in hurry so a house can be sold. Every week. Local politicians: You want to score some points with the voters? Start talking about renters’ rights.