Join Nevada Humanities for a lunchtime event featuring Jon Ralston, the 2023 Robert Laxalt Distinguished Writer Awardee and a veteran Nevada journalist, in conversation with award-winning journalist John L. Smith. Their conversation will address the trajectory of journalism in Nevada. This in-person program is free and open to all.
Jon Ralston has been covering politics in Nevada for more than 30 years and is the founder and CEO of The Nevada Independent. His blog, Ralston Reports, was founded in 2012 and now lives on The Nevada Independent website. Jon wrote for the Las Vegas Review-Journal for 15 years, the last seven as a freelance columnist. In 1999, Greenspun Media Group purchased his political newsletter, The Ralston Report, and hired him as a columnist for the Las Vegas Sun where his byline appeared until September 2012. He was also a columnist for the Reno Gazette-Journal from January 2015 until November 2016, when he left to start The Nevada Independent. Over the years, Jon has hosted several TV programs, and he also writes and publishes Flash, a Nevada-centric newsletter that frames the political agenda for the day, breaks news, and offers analysis and snark. In 2012, Politico named Jon one of the Top 50 "Politicos to Watch." He frequently appears on MSNBC, FOX News, and PBS, and he has also appeared on NBC's long-running Meet the Press.
John L. Smith is a longtime Las Vegas journalist and the author of more than a dozen books including Saints, Sinners, and Sovereign Citizens: The Endless War over the West’s Public Lands. He was inducted into the Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame in 2016, a year that also saw him share with former Las Vegas Review-Journal colleagues in the Foley-Medill Medal for Courage from Northwestern University, the Ancil Payne Award for Ethics from the University of Oregon, and the Ethics Award from the National Society of Professional Journalists. He was also a Nevada Writers Hall of Fame Silver Pen Award winner in 2010. He has championed Nevada writers for three decades. He currently writes for The Nevada Independent.