Unintended insult

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

Every once in a while, I like to use this little column to tell readers about the inner workings of our newspaper. This is one of those times. I hope everyone will read this week’s letters section, to get some background on what I’m writing about, but I’ll give you the story in a nutshell: Last week, we published a restaurant review by Katie Power about the Gold N’ Silver restaurant on West Fourth Street. This was Power’s first restaurant review, and basically, her assignment was to write about a restaurant she likes that we haven’t written about in the last two years.

She suggested the Gold N’ Silver, and I OK’d the idea. She returned with an attitudinal, sardonic story about her experience at the restaurant. I copy edited the story, as I edit many of the stories in this newspaper. Basically, what Katie meant to say was, “Hey, here’s a great restaurant in town where someone who doesn’t generally order meat in restaurants can get some good food. I enjoyed the food, the personality of the place and the service.”

Well, it took all of about 30 seconds on Thursday morning before I started getting complaints about the review. Very few people saw Power’s commentary as hyperbolic, and so what was meant to be humor poked at a well-known and appreciated restaurant came off as the power-drunk ramblings of a raving grouch.

I can say with assurance that neither Katie nor I intended any offense to the staff of the Gold N’ Silver.

I’ve thought about this for a week now, and I can say that if you knew Katie, you’d know she was kidding. The problem, and the problem is mine, is you don’t know Katie. I should have realized this and helped Katie to express more precisely her positive opinions of the Gold N’ Silver.

At any rate, I’m sorry if the review was disrespectful to the people who work at the Gold N’ Silver. That was absolutely not our intention, and we at the R&NR don’t go out of our way to offend people who don’t deserve it.