Nevada Press Association The best in Nevada journalism since 1924
We’re debuting a new feature this month. NPA Member Spotlight will be a series of monthly interviews with NPA members from the newsrooms and business operations of newspapers throughout the state.
Reno-based freelance journalist Kim Palchikoff will conduct the interviews. Kim is an award-winning reporter who has written for the New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, the LA Times, the Las Vegas Sun and other publications. You may know her from the mental health columns she distributes for free publication in NPA-member papers. Her first interview was with Winnemucca Publishing Editor Jen Anderson, who recently joined the NPA Board of Directors.
Jen Anderson, Editor, Winnemucca Publishing
Q: Tell me a little about your professional experience.
A: I’ve been in the industry for about 17 years in one form or another.
Winnemucca Publishing has three newspapers (The Humboldt Sun, Lovelock Review-Miner and Battle Mountain Bugle) of which I’m the editor, and one magazine, The Nevada Rancher. We also have several special publications throughout the year. We cover what’s known as the tri-county area (Pershing, Humboldt, Lander) which encompasses much of northern Nevada along the I-80 corridor.
Where does your passion for journalism come from?
I’ve always had a love for writing and the creativity that comes with it. I enjoy the healthy pressure that envelopes a newsroom on deadline day: everyone rushing around, ads getting killed last minute, pages getting added with three hours to press time. It’s exciting. On Monday I’ll be interviewing the mayor about the new sewer project, on Tuesday I’ll be doing a feature on a lost dog that found its way home after missing for five months, and two hours later I’ll be covering a heated county commission meeting. It’s fast paced, interesting and always changing — that’s what I love about it.
What’s it like covering Winnemucca?
Winnemucca is simultaneously a close-knit community with generations of people who have lived here for 70+ years, and also a little transient due to the mining industry. Access to county and city officials has historically been pretty open, which I feel is pretty unique to smaller communities. I can call the mayor and get a face-to-face in the same day. Important issues are the mining and agriculture industry, water issues, feral horses, the Bureau of Land Management, Burning Man, ranching and agriculture, public lands, local government, schools and sports.
How do you keep your readers engaged?
We try very hard to cover events and stories that no one else does. We go to all of the county commission, school board, city council and hospital board meetings along with a few others. We realize that these boards meet at a time when most people are working, so we attend on the public’s behalf. If we didn’t report on these meetings, the transparency and accountability in all three communities would greatly decrease. I am not naive enough to think that we are gaining readership — especially in the younger generations — but the news we provide can’t typically be found digitally.
Do you have a favorite behind-the-scenes story ?
Several years ago when I was assistant editor, our editor at the time responded to an accident on the freeway. He showed up to the scene drunk and belligerent. He was arrested and thrown in jail for a few days. I had to step in to do editorial duties. Our GM was out of the country, our editor was in jail, and at the same time our entire network went down. We lost literally everything — all of our stories, archives, fillers, photos, our ads, our formatted pages — EVERYTHING. My team and I had to build a newspaper from absolute scratch in about two hours. We had to steal stories from the next edition since we couldn’t access the ones on our server. Photos were retaken, fillers were re-made, it was absolute chaos. On top of that, I had to write a story acknowledging that our editor was arrested for a DUI.
What do you do when you’re not in the newsroom?
I wear a lot of hats in my life! Along with heading the tri-county area newspapers, I’m involved in different opportunities for engagement and interaction with various events and organizations, such as creating decorative signs for local groups for fundraisers. I have been married to my husband Kyle since 2001 and we have two daughters: Jovi, 11, and Aven, 9. We are both Winnemucca natives and have known one another since junior high school, so we are very engaged in our community.
