‘Reno doesn’t bite’: An introduction to journalism

Early in my journalism career, I remember a silver pickup truck and a crazed dog forged from every breed on the Crow Reservation. A pillar of light-gray smoke rose above nearby hills and into Big Horn County, Montana’s afternoon sky. I’d learn to recognize its hue as that from a grass fire.

At the driver’s seat, my former boss, Jim, told me to hop in; his dog, Reno, bared her fangs and split my ears with piercing barks of warning.

“Don’t worry,” Jim said helpfully. “Reno doesn’t bite.” Reno, hanging over his shoulder, seemed to disagree vehemently. Her eyes appeared feral. Her teeth flashed. I hesitated for a moment, then – that summer of 2012 – entered the truck.

In this manner, Jim and I would cover a bevy of fires as temperatures shot into the triple digits and an unknown arsonist ran loose across the prairie. When Bureau of Indian Affairs agents protested our presence – as they did on a couple occasions – Jim would engage them in an argument about the First Amendment; both times, I would wander by, unnoticed, and take more photos.

I spent the next six years as editor of the Big Horn County News, delving into Crow tribal culture, dubious politics, legal battles, bright celebrations, horrific crimes, billion-dollar coal deals, inspiring stories of overcoming the odds, and a detention facility whose history trying to bring in Guantanamo inmates and a military training camp promised by a conman with 20-plus aliases proved the stuff of legends.

And then, one day in late 2018, I decided to stop. The paper had won its second General Excellence award since I started. I’d finished a large, four-part project regarding questionable government raiding tactics on a nationwide scale. Most of all, I’d always wanted to write a science fiction novel (regarding the book’s progress, it’s always nearly done). I trained my replacement by May of 2019 and moved to Bismarck, North Dakota.

If you asked me last year in August, I would have told you I had no plans to go back into journalism. Considering my current position – managing editor based at The Holyoke Enterprise – I appear to have been mistaken.

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