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Welcome to this week's Reno News & Review.
I take this seriously out of respect for the victims, but when the media, including the Associated Press, KOLO-TV, Reno Gazette-Journal, Elko Daily Free Press, KSNV in Las Vegas, the Daily Journal in Indiana and others, report, “Ex-Reno News & Review writer sentenced for date rapes,” all I can do is shake my head. Why not “Rapist sentenced to 40 years”?
The last story Danny Riggs wrote for this newspaper was in 2009. He was a generally a music writer. He won a couple of awards, including a big one through the university, the Steve Martarano Best Published Article Award. The award paid him $500.
I fired him. I can say that because it's hard to libel a convicted rapist. It would also be hard to violate his privacy since he publicly suggested to arts editor Brad Bynum that he fight me for his (freelance) job back.
He was a liar and a scoundrel, no doubt. I fired him for missing deadlines and ethical violations.
There's this thing about criminality and demonization that I never quite get. I'm a pretty good judge of character. I thought the kid was misguided and would take the easy path to get what he wanted, but I didn't think he was a bad guy. Just too ambitious. Obviously, I was wrong, but he wasn't some demon. At some point not that long ago, he was just a boy, loved by his family and his teachers. I remember the extra efforts faculty at the University of Nevada, Reno gave him. They don't do that for people they don't like.
I've got to wonder, though, why Assistant District Attorney Rebecca Druckman included that he freelanced here all those years ago in her release about the conviction. I also wonder why she included that Riggs was an Obama supporter. Weird. Plainly she used the public dime to make political hay—why, I don't know.
I spoke to Associated Press San Francisco Bureau Chief John Raess about it. His argument was that if people in Reno knew Riggs, they were most likely to know him from this newspaper. Still, four and a half years. I see the logic in his argument even if I probably wouldn't have handled it the same way.
