Bowder starts as RJ metro editor
‘Have to hold people in power to account’
The Las Vegas Review-journal has hired Mark Bowder as its metro editor, giving him a direct role in managing daily and enterprise coverage about Southern Nevada.
Bowder said he’s excited to be in Las Vegas. His goal is to extend the work of what’s already a storied newsroom, he said.
“Our job is to serve our readers, to ask questions that they’re not able to ask and to look at things in ways that might not occur to people,” Bowder said. “We have to hold people in power to account and speak for those who don’t have a voice.”
Bowder, who assumed the role Monday, comes to Las Vegas from Vancouver, Washington, where he worked his way up to metro editor at The Columbian after starting as assistant metro editor in 2005. He has worked in several newsrooms across a nearly four-decade career as both an editor and reporter, mostly in California and Washington.
“Mark has had an impressive career in the newspaper business,” said Carri Geer Thevenot, the Review-journal’s assistant managing editor overseeing news and business coverage. “He brings just the type of experience and temperament I was seeking for an editor to help guide our metro staff and its coverage of Southern Nevada issues.”
While with the Peace Corps in Thailand, he worked with the Royal Thai Ministry of Public Health to reduce rates of iodine deficiency disorder, which can cause birth defects. The job gave him the chance to understand and adapt to a new culture — an experience he carried into his journalism career.
At The Columbian, Bowder oversaw award-winning coverage of the Nakia Creek wildfire, which forced the evacuations of thousands of homes in the area. He also helped facilitate the hiring of five reporters funded by community partnerships, spanning beats such as transportation, climate change and affordable housing.
Above all, Bowder said he looks forward to working with reporters one-on-one and increasing the breadth of the Review-journal’s coverage. One adage he finds useful is how the news should “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,” he said.
He replaces Geer Thevenot, who was metro editor before being promoted to assistant managing editor last year.