Join the party

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

I wish I could tell you more about this plan I have for a project this summer. Suffice it to say, it’s never been accomplished by any newspaper in history. I know that sounds like I’m overselling or boasting or something, but I have a pretty good idea of where this project is going to go and how it’s going to work. Let’s be honest: I don’t want to say too much because I’m afraid steps would be taken to undermine the innovation/project.

It’s going to require the help of our entire community, though. A big component of it will require the use of social networks like Twitter, Facebook and Myspace. I’ve spent big chunks of the last two weeks trying to get our infrastructure put together so when the time comes, we can move quickly.

Now, here’s how you can help (for now, anyway): 1) Join our fan page at www.facebook.com/RenoNewsReview (being our friend at Reno NewsandReview won’t help. that page is going to go away); 2) follow us on Twitter at RNRtwits; 3) Friend us on Myspace at www.myspace.com/renonewsandreview

There will be some other technology involved, but I’ll tell you about that when the time comes. Trust me on this: It’s going to be cool.

Along other lines, I’ve been thinking about something that coalesced in my mind at the recent 2010 Nevada Interactive Media Conference that was held at the university a couple of weekends ago: The fundamental difference between real journalists and people who work in media but aren’t journalists is knowledge and adherance to a code of ethics. It appears to me that many, if not most, of the people who seek to blur the lines between real, trustworthy journalism and marketing have never even seen, let alone read or studied, a code of journalism ethics. Here’s the one the Society of Professional Journalists uses: www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp.