Welcome aboard
He’s no stranger around here. He’s been writing and broadcasting news in Reno since about 1966. I’m not going to list his bona fides, they’d fill up my whole space. Please just accept it when I say he is one of the top journalists in the state.
I’m sure many of you are familiar with his work in this newspaper. He’s written some really great pieces for us, including the cover story last fall detailing the political changes heralded by California Gov. Gray Davis’ recall, “Republic’s end,” and his February 2003 cover story on Gov. Guinn’s fiscal program that in some ways predicted the trainwreck of the 2003 Nevada Legislature. The fact is, Dennis has broken more news stories than most politicians have broken promises.
Dennis is also one of the most ethical journalists I know. A person will at least get a fair telling of his or her story. Anyway, he doesn’t need me to toot his horn. You’ll see what I mean.
Along other lines, we’ve got a cover story about legendary Reno punk rockers, 7Seconds, this week. This is one of those times where there’s a “rest of the story” thing going on. We’ve been planned to use this cover story for five or six weeks; all we needed was the opportunity. However, putting out a newspaper is a balancing act. Sometimes, when the writer is on task, the source isn’t returning calls. When the story’s good, the headline isn’t working. When you need dramatic shadows, it’s raining. When you are shooting the cover photo of a rock band, a member is driving a limo in Vegas and doesn’t show up to the shoot. Give Dave Foto a pat on the back. He shot some great photos of three members of the band. It’s too bad we couldn’t use them on the cover—instead of the publicity shot we ended up with.
Reason to vote No. 18: Your mom didn’t raise you to be passive and let everyone else carry the load.