Letters

City limits

Welcome to this week’s Reno News & Review.

I just got back from Austin, Texas, and the Association of Alternative Newsmedia’s annual convention. It was great to meet with colleagues from other alternative newsweeklies across the country, and I had an especially nice time talking to folks from other smaller market papers, like the Eugene Weekly, the Tulsa Voice, and North Carolina’s Triad City Beat—great papers y’all should check out if you’re ever in those necks of the woods.

One disturbing and gross thing was how much discussion I heard about “native advertising” and “branded content,” which is to say, ads that looks like articles and articles created to promote sponsors. Yuck. This kind of crap is getting more common as advertisers and publishers look to monetize digital content. Readers beware.

I attended engaging discussions about women’s health—sadly, an especially contentious issue in Texas— copyright laws, historical reporting, data journalism, and more. It was an invigorating experience, and many kudos to the Austin Chronicle for putting it together.

And Austin itself is amazing. Folks who say that Reno might become “the next Austin,” in terms of live music, must not realize what a long way we have to go. There’s so much live music happening all over that town, it can be overwhelming, and it’s surprisingly eclectic. In just three nights there, I saw honky tonk greats Dale Watson & Ray Benson, esteemed bluesman Jimmie Vaughn, super cool Austin post-rock band Marriage, and a fantastic Brazilian psychedelic band, Boogarins.

But the wildest thing I saw was mounted Austin police officers clearing Sixth Street of pedestrian traffic at 3 a.m. on the night of July 8. The street closes to automobile traffic during weekend nights so bar hoppers can wander aimlessly, but as the police cleared the streets of early morning revelers, there was a palpable tension in the air—at least partly a result of the terrible events that occurred upstate the previous night.

—Brad Bynum bradb@newsreview.com

Highton feedback

Re “The Trump card” (cover story, June 30):

I don’t know where to begin in responding to Jake Highton’s defense of his decision to vote for the least qualified nominee for president in the history of the United States. His rant sounds like Fox News, Karl Rove and a Koch Brothers PAC, all spitting up the same really old, ridiculous talking points in unison. I won’t attempt to counter every contorted point Highton tries in vain to make.

But I will point out that his strange illusion, bordering on delusion, begins with sentence #2. He says, “Sanders won most of the Democratic primaries ...” That, of course, is simply not true. Hillary Clinton won 34 state and territorial primary contests to Sanders’ 23 wins. She won 3.7 million more popular votes and almost 400 more pledged (not super) delegates.

It’s over. Clinton won, not because the system is rigged, but because more people voted for her. It’s time for the Reno News & Review to just get over it.

It’s time for the new editor to do his job and tell Dennis Myers and Jake Highton to stop boring us with old news and bad information. Stop talking about throwing chairs and super delegates and how Bernie really won and instead join the rest of us in the real post-primary world.

Barack Obama happens to think Hillary Clinton is the most highly qualified candidate to ever run for President and Elizabeth Warren is with her. So, Jake, you go right ahead and vote for The Donald. You bet, he’ll bring some “excitement” to the White House, if watching an implosion is your idea of excitement.

Janice Flanagan Reno

Yes, Trump might be a bigot and a con man, but at least he is not a career criminal like Hillary. Both are extremely poor choices. It’s like having to choose Bozo the Clown or organized crime. I’ll take Bozo, despite his flaws.

Stephen Bloyd Carson City

Right now, any president is helpless to make the great changes this country needs. Hillary can hold the line, work with the other side, keep the Democrats viable until support—in the form of new blood—arrives to save the day.

Highton exaggerates. Hillary Clinton has never been indicted for anything. It’s so macho to refer to her feminism as “elite.” You mean the way she supports a path to immigration? Black Lives Matter? I’ve heard the old saw “America needs a woman president. Just not ___________(fill in the name).” Clinton’s experience and qualifications are unsurpassed. As Kathleen Kennedy Townsend says, Clinton will show “young people how a powerful American woman, on the cusp of winning the biggest job in the world, looks and acts.”

Give me a break, Jake.

mary lee FulkerSon Reno

Congratulations, Reno News & Review, for balancing two opinion pieces on Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. On one side you presented a four-page, convoluted diatribe by Jake Highton that suggested that those who supported Bernie Sanders should move their allegiance to Trump because of some unsubstantiated transgressions by Hillary Clinton.

This nonsense was beautifully repudiated several pages later by the succinctly written Bruce Van Dyke column. Well done.

ron Smith Reno

Correction

Re “Keep the lines straight” (cover story, July 7):

The print version of our cover story on things to watch for in the Question 2 campaign this year ran without a byline. It was written by Dennis Myers.

eRIK HoLLAND

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