In 2017, Joe McCarthy founded the End of the Trail Broadcast Project, a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation intended to manage KNVC, a new lpfm public radio station licensed to serve Carson City and Douglas County, Nevada. With the help of Jeff Cotton, a transmitter was placed on a tower atop Duck Hill in-between the Washoe and Eagle Valleys playing music content from Jive Radio. Brian Bahouth joined the team soon after.
While Joe worked the management and fundraising side, Brian designed and built the KNVC studios, authored the station’s initial program grid, and first opened a microphone in the Carson City studio on January 14, 2018. A core of stalwart volunteers to include current program director Joe Bly and others continue to operate the station today. We’re proud to say KNVC is the state’s only Pacifica affiliate.
We published more than 120 print and audio reports to the KNVC website before launching a separate online news organization. Seven months after making the station’s studios live, we launched Nevada Capital News as a separate dba under the radio station nonprofit in September of 2018.
Eleven volunteer contributors published 348 reports over NCN’s first year and garnered nearly 200,000 user visits. We filed some 50 reports from the Nevada State Legislature. Scaling those results for our resources, the effort was a first-year success, but now, the scope of the news organization has outgrown the mission and purpose of a terrestrial community station that serves Carson City and Douglas County.
On Wednesday, January 8, 2020, we filed state and federal paperwork through a registered agent to establish a new 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation just for the news service, The Sierra Nevada Ally, The Ally.
The Nevada Capital News content archive has migrated to sierranevadaally.org.
Based in Reno, our area of geographical relevance is all of northern Nevada, the Tahoe Sierra, and northeastern California. As part of our year-2 plan, we are working to double content output in 2020 by hiring regional freelance writers to deepen our select reporting on the environment, education, governance, and the arts.
We are already making plans to have a day-to-day presence at the 2021 session of the Nevada State Legislature.
Thanks to everyone who helped make our first year a success. We need your tax-deductible contribution now more than ever. If you’ve already given thank you! If not, take time now to make a secure donation. Earmark your contribution to our freelance fund. Every penny is spent on the work of regional writers.
Be sure to signup for our new content email blast.
Brian Bahouth and Joe McCarthy
The Sierra Nevada Ally
