Hellos and hellos

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

I’m looking for a liberal columnist. I’ve received some very good samples, but I haven’t received one that reaches me at the gut level I need. So, to help people who want to resubmit or who want to throw their hat in the ring, here are some criteria.

I’m looking for someone who has shown commitment to this community. I’m looking for a generally liberal person—in the Nevada tradition—who isn’t a party hack. I’m looking for someone who reads the newspaper. I’m looking for someone who can write sensibly, compassionately and passionately. Plainly, since this describes the staff, I’m looking for someone who’s not on staff. This is a political column, so I’m looking for someone who cares primarily about politics and government and where those things intersect locally with local people.

I’m looking for someone who’s fiercely independent, unencumbered by business relationships or conflicts of interest. Someone with integrity. I’m definitely not looking for someone who’s in it for the money, as we pay very little. We have a huge readership—something like 100,000 people read us at least once a month—out of that enormous talent pool, there are not 1,000 people who fit these criteria; there are maybe 10 needles in this haystack.

There are people in this community whose voices I love—Jake Highton, Andy Barbano and Cory Farley come to mind. But it’s really impossible to claim they’re “our” voice when they’ve been so identified with other publications. I learned that lesson when we were fortunate enough to have Cory with us a few years ago. But on the other hand, Bruce Van Dyke will always also be inextricably identified with The X, so it’s not a hard, fast rule.

If you’d like to be considered to fill the columnist position, send three 600-word sample columns on local politics to brianb@newsreview.com.

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Along other lines, I’ve hired Ashley Hennefer to take over the position of special projects editor. Welcome aboard, Ashley. This is going to be fun.