Boots on the ground are key to local journalism

University of Nevada, Reno, graduate student Carly Sauvageau has posted her video about both figurative and literal news deserts about her hometown, Tonopah.

I got to view the video at a local journalism breakfast in Reno on Oct. 19, one of the rare times when I’m out of the county on business, of sorts.

Carly graduated from Tonopah High School and moved to Reno to go to the Don Reynolds School of Journalism.

She and I had a long conversation last spring on her graduate thesis. I fear I wasn’t that helpful an interview for her, seeing as Carson Valley isn’t that much of a news desert, since we get the RGJ and all the news stations here.

As someone who did his reporting internship at the Tonopah Times-Bonanza some 35 years ago, I have to admit seeing the old Tonopah Times and Goldfield News building affected me more than I expected.

Tonopah still has a newspaper, though not a local reporter, and it’s those boots on the ground that make a difference in our communities.

“When a community lacks regular reporting, who will tell the stories of its people,” Carly asks in her video, which you can watch at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABC9-jxaHLU.

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Dust off your open collar shirt, gold chains and huge sideburns because the return of the Carson Valley Museum & Cultural Center’s Family Day will feature a public display of R-C editions from the 1970s.

Organizer Marlena Hellwinkel said they’ll have boxes of R-C’s from the decade that spawned and then ended disco.

The editions have been provided by locals and will be available for sale for a donation, though I wager you’ll need more than the 10-cent cover price.

Kurt Hildebrand is editor of The Record-Courier. Reach him at khildebrand@recordcourier.com