A Year of Taking a Deeper Dive into Reno News
Here's a look back at 2025 and the growth of Mike's Reno Report from May till Dec 2025.
Jan 05, 2026
When I started in late May, Mike’s Reno Report was an experiment. By the end of the year, I had published 150 articles with a ~70% open rate, and it had become a running record of how Reno works, who makes decisions, who benefits, who gets ignored, and who gets billed.
How This Reporting Works
I write investigative journalism. I don’t publish rumors or anonymous accusations. Everything that appears here is either verified directly through documents, public records, on-the-record statements, or corroborated by multiple sources.
I spend hours reading city agendas, staff reports, legal filings, budgets, development applications, campaign finance disclosures, audit documents, and court records, along with local and state news coverage.
Articles are written over several days. I usually have 3 or 4 in the works at any time. If I can’t confirm something, it doesn’t run, no matter how much someone might insist.
People send tips and ask questions. I get some interesting stories sent to me. Some turn into articles and some don’t, either because they can’t be verified, aren't accurate, or aren’t in the public interest.
I am intentionally non-partisan. I write about candidates, campaigns, and elected officials across the political spectrum, but I don’t endorse parties, platforms, or factions.
My interest is in how power is being exercised, how public money is being spent, and whether institutions are doing what they say they are doing.
I regularly talk with candidates and officeholders to understand their perspective and to give them a chance to explain or respond — not to promote them, but to get the record right.
The goal of this newsletter is to make information visible, legible, and grounded in evidence so that readers can form their own conclusions. This takes time. It means fewer stories but better ones.
What Was Covered
Looking back at this year’s articles, a few themes emerge. None of them was planned. They were written because I kept seeing gaps between official narratives and lived reality. I kept seeing a deeper story than what the news was reporting.
Reno’s finances are not abstract.
I wrote articles about the city’s structural deficit, tax deals, subsidies, and budget priorities because those aren’t accounting problems; they’re political choices. “$24 million in the hole” isn’t just a number. It’s deferred maintenance, rising fees, shrinking services, and future taxes.
Reno’s Structural Deficit and the Culture That Created It: $24 Million in the Hole.
Revitalization is a story — and stories can be false.
Reno is full of words: transformation, renaissance, activation. I followed what happened instead: demolitions, stalled projects, broken promises, and communities affected by deals they never agreed to. From the Neon Line to Harrah’s to Stonegate and Lakeside, the pattern was consistent.
Harrah’s Sold Us Boise. Then Ahlquist Walked Away. Why Did That Happen?
Power in Reno is often exercised quietly and indirectly.
We have Airport authorities that no one voted for. Land sales that are routed through intermediaries. Boards and commissions with influence and almost no scrutiny. Much of this year was spent identifying where power really sits and how far removed it is from public accountability.
Who Runs the Reno-Tahoe Airport Authority — and Why You Never Voted for Them
Local politics is less about ideology and more about behavior.
The mayor’s race revealed that the dividing line isn’t left vs. right. It’s transparency vs. spin, accountability vs. insulation, listening vs. pressure. Personalities mattered as they revealed patterns, who bullies, who deflects, and who engages.
Reno’s 2026 Mayoral Race: Who is in the Lineup? What are their Chances?
People care most when policy affects their daily lives.
You engaged hardest when topics were tangible: traffic and commuter rail, license plate tracking, crime and courts, speech on campus, homelessness programs, and neighborhood change. Not abstractions. Not slogans.
What If Reno Had a Real Commuter Train to USA Parkway? Not a Trolly.
What surprised me most this year wasn’t what got the most views; it was what got shared, discussed, and argued over. That tells me something important: people here are hungry for information. For someone willing to say, “That doesn’t add up — and here’s why.”
Subscriber Growth: From Start to Scale
Six months ago, this publication was small. At the start of July, Mike’s Reno Report had about 900 subscribers. Today, it has just under 5,000. Articles regularly get 5000 to 6000 views. This put my report in the top 5% of Substacks, with more views per article than some local newspapers.
What matters more than the number is how it happened. It happened through reporting that reached an audience. The people who subscribed are the ones who read, share, comment, and care. It’s an audience built around attention and interest.
More important than the numbers is how those subscribers behave:
87% of subscribers were active in the past month
The average email open rate is about 70%
The number of times emails were opened is over 409,000
Articles got comments, Shares, and links clicked
By industry standards, those numbers are exceptional. Many newsletters consider 30–40% “active” a success. This audience is more than twice that, which tells me people aren’t just subscribed—they’re paying attention.
Of those who share location data, Nevada is the largest group by far, followed by California, and a smaller number of readers across the country who track Reno because they’ve lived here, own property here, or care about what happens here.
Traffic: Occasional Reach to Sustained Visibility
Over the last 180 days, the publication generated approximately 485,000 views. The shape of that traffic tells a more important story than the total.
There were surges in attention that corresponded to stories that appealed to the audience. Traffic settled into a sustained range rather than boom-and-bust cycles. That’s the difference between virality and relevance.
What the Publication Became
This year was about building trust. The growth you see reflects that approach. This isn’t a drive-by readership. It’s a community that reads, thinks, and shows up.
The publication became visible. That visibility is now durable. It’s the result of consistent, specific, document-driven reporting that readers recognize as valuable and trustworthy enough to return to, and to share.
This new year, the work doesn’t change. I’ll continue to follow the money, follow the incentives, name the decision-makers, document the consequences, and keep building a public record that can’t be waved away with talking points. Reno deserves that.