Nevada journalism from Twain to Pulitzers

(An Online Nevada Encyclopedia is being readied. Here is shorter version of the entry under history of Nevada journalism.)
The Territorial Enterprise, the best and most influential newspaper in the West during the 1860s, published Nevada’s first newspaper in Genoa in 1858. It moved to Carson City as the rush to Washoe began. Then, when the silver fever gripped the Comstock, it moved to Virginia City.
Giants of Western journalism roamed the Comstock in those days: Mark Twain, Dan De Quille, Joe Goodman, Alf Doten and Wells Drury. Twain, who gained an international reputation as a writer, admitted that in his Enterprise reporting he “let fancy get the upper hand of fact too often when there was a dearth of news.” He once put an emigrant wagon “through an Indian fight that…has no parallel in history.”
Hoaxes were perfect for mining camp journalism. Twain’s hoaxing masterpiece was the Empire City Massacre, a multiple slaying in a log cabin. The Enterprise headine screamed: “Scalps His Wife and Dashes Out the Brains of Six Helpless Children.” The rival Gold Hill Daily News reprinted the hoax as fact.
Mining gave Nevada more ghost towns than live ones. Towns sprang up hastily and died quickly as mining camps went from boom to bust. Mining camp newspapers followed the same pattern: bonanza to borrasca.
In rugged 19th century Nevada journalism, duels and shootouts sometimes took the place of the sedate libel suits of today. But fire was the greatest hazard. A devastating fire roared through Virginia City Oct. 26, 1875, killing three people and destroying 1,000 homes and 300 buildings.
The Chinese and blacks were targets of racism and hatred after the Civil War. The Humboldt Register in Unionville denounced the owner of the Reno Crescent as the “nigger and Chinese worshipping editor.” Black experience in Nevada reflected the national history: affronts, discrimination and Jim Crow. The Tonopah Bonanza wrote in 1906: “The coon promptly pleaded guilty.”
One of the most colorful Nevada journalists was Jack McCloskey, publisher of the Mineral County Independent and Hawthorne News. He was garrulous, yes, but witty, full of anecdotes and tales of yesteryear. He wrote a front-page column, “Jasper,” from 1931 almost until his death in 2000.
The best journalist ever produced in Nevada was Frank McCulloch. He was chief of two bureaus for Time magazine. In 1960 he became managing editor of the Los Angeles Times but quit to cover the Vietnam War for Time. All told, McCulloch wrote 120 coveted Time cover stories. He came out of retirement to become managing editor of the Sacramento Bee. Retiring again, he was lured back to newspapering, becoming m.e. of the San Francisco Examiner.
The Pulitzer Prize, the highest honor in journalism, was awarded to the Reno Evening Gazette and Nevada State Journal in 1977. The executive editor of both papers, Warren Lerude, shared the prize in editorial writing with Foster Church and Norman Cardoza.
Edward Montgomery, who studied journalism under A.L. Higginbotham at the University of Nevada, won a Pulitzer in 1951 as a reporter for the Examiner. Another “Higgy” student, Howard Sheerin, won in 1956 for meritorous public service by leading, as city editor, a team of reporters for the Watsonville Register-Pajaronian in California.
Three other UNR journalism grads claimed Pulitzers. They were Ron Einstoss of the Los Angeles Times in 1966 for local staff reporting, Susie Forrest in 1988 as a reporter for the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune of Massachusetts and Kristin Go, a staffer at the Denver Post which won in 2000 for breaking news.
The one genuine giant of modern newspapering was Hank Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun. He took on demagogic Sen. Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin who gripped the nation in the early 1950s with red-baiting and fearmongering. Greenspun’s vehicle was his page one column, “Where I Stand.” He founded the Sun in 1950, his powerful presence looming over Las Vegas until he died in 1989.
The commanding newspaper in Northern Nevada today is the Reno Gazette-Journal. Three of its fixtures are columnist Cory Farley, investigative reporter Frank Mullen and veteran reporter Lenita Powers. In Southern Nevada, the Las Vegas Review-Journal rules.
The Gazette-Journal is part of the Gannett chain where money is more important than the quality of the paper. The Review-Journal is even more conservative than most Nevadans.
Finally, Let Us Now Praise the Sparks Tribune, which was founded in 1910. The Trib has the courage to print columns that would never appear in any other Establishment newspaper.
Jake Highton teaches journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno. He has published a history of Nevada journalism, “Nevada Newspaper Days.”