Nevada Press Association The best in Nevada journalism since 1924
This is the next in a series on newer members of the Nevada Press Association since non-newspapers were granted full membership in 2019.
Hugh Jackson, editor of the Nevada Current, has been around long enough to know a good lede when he reads it.
“This is the most important thing that all Nevada Press Association members need to know about the Nevada Current,” he says. “They can publish any of our stuff any time they want for free.”
The Current, a member of States Newsroom, a national nonprofit news cooperative with online publications in 25 states, launched in June 2018.
Its newness belies the experience of the Current’s staff, however, which in addition to Jackson includes Dana Gentry, April Corbin Girnus, Michael Lyle and Jeniffer Solis — all with roots in Las Vegas journalism.
“I’ve worked a lot of different places,” says Jackson. “I’ve never worked anywhere that produced as much stuff with as small a staff as the Current. We have fresh stuff up certainly every weekday and usually over the weekend.”
Jackson was editor of Las Vegas Business Press, as well as a former senior editor at CityLife, and came to Nevada 25 years ago after working as a reporter and editor at the Star-Tribune in Casper, Wyo.
Gentry, a Las Vegas native and UNLV grad, was a reporter at KLAS-TV and later produced “Face to Face with Jon Ralston,” the political interview show. She was elected to a two-year term on the Nevada Press Association Board of Directors in October 2020.
Corbin Girnus was a beat reporter for the Las Vegas Sun and web editor of Las Vegas Weekly, and is on the board of the Las Vegas chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Lyle, who started at View Neighborhood News before moving to the Las Vegas Review-Journal for seven years, was the Nevada Press Association’s 2011 Journalist of Merit.
Solis, also a Las Vegas native, was a senior staff writer at UNLV’s student newspaper while getting a degree there and reporter for KUNV radio.
“They are all very different than I am, and they all bring very different interests and outlooks,” says Jackson. “It’s really come home to me how having people with different interests and outlooks in turn drives — not only how stories get covered and whose voices get included — but what stories get covered in the first place.”
He points to a recent story by Corbin Girnus on a retiring Hawthorne
dentist as an example of the Current’s statewide reach. It ties a human-interest feature to the burgeoning crisis in Nevada’s rural health care.
It’s also an example of the content the Nevada Current makes available to re-publish simply by clicking on a button at the bottom of the story.
States Newsroom, which collects donations and grants including the Google News Initiative Journalism Emergency Relief Fund, pays salaries and benefits for the staff. Fundraising in Nevada assists the Current with some local expenses, such as travel to Carson City to cover the Legislature.
The Current joined the Nevada Press Association to help establish its credibility at the beginning when government agencies like Las Vegas Metro police wouldn’t even respond to questions from Current reporters.
“For new publications that are having trouble, I think belonging to the Press Association kind of lets their county commission, or whatever, know that these people are here and they’re real,” says Jackson.
Read about more of the diverse publications making up the Nevada Press Association, and learn how to become a member.