The Nevadan
The Nevadan, also styled The Nevadan / El Nevadense, is a bilingual digital news outlet covering Nevada, launched in August 2023 as a state newsroom of Courier Newsroom. Based in Las Vegas and publishing in English and Spanish at thenevadannews.com, it delivers Nevada politics, policy and community coverage in the formats its target audience actually uses: short TikTok videos, swipeable social media carousels, skimmable web articles and email newsletters. It was Courier's Nevada expansion ahead of the 2024 election, built by and for Nevadans, with a particular mission to reach Latino and younger readers underserved by existing Nevada news.
Overview
The Nevadan describes itself as a state-based newsroom of local editors and reporters with a modern take on sharing information and telling stories that matter to its communities. Its stories, delivered in both Spanish and English, are factual and focus on the people who call the Silver State home, and it reaches them through social media, its website and newsletters delivered to readers' inboxes. Its Spanish-language identity, El Nevadense, is not an afterthought translation: the newsroom presents itself bilingually from its name onward.
It is owned and operated by Courier, the pro-democracy news network founded in 2019 by Tara McGowan, which describes its mission as building a more informed, engaged and representative America by reaching audiences where they are online with factual, values-driven news and analysis at the local and national level.
Launch in August 2023
The Nevadan was announced on August 16, 2023, in a launch essay by Emilia Pablo Bazan, a longtime Nevada journalist and advocate who had spent her career informing Nevadans. Industry coverage the same month, reported by Axios and carried by Editor & Publisher, said Courier was launching the Nevada newsroom and planning two more newsrooms, in Texas and New Hampshire, in the coming months, with publisher Tara McGowan presenting the expansion ahead of the 2024 election.
The launch essay set out the problem the newsroom was built to solve. Driving away from the Las Vegas Strip, Pablo wrote, a visitor sees the real Nevada behind the statistics: the fifth fastest-growing state of the previous decade, with the biggest growth coming from the Latino community, and majority-Latino communities in North Las Vegas and East Las Vegas. In midterm and presidential elections, the nation watches the Battle Born state to read the political winds. Yet a whole group of Nevadans, especially younger people in her community, were disengaged from government, uninterested in news and unconvinced civic participation mattered, spending their time on TikTok and Instagram, with little news content made for their media habits in English or Spanish. The Nevadan was launched to change that.
Bilingual and Social-First Model
The Nevadan promised original and reliable journalistic visual and audio reporting, plus lifestyle content, in 30-second TikToks, swipeable social carousels and skimmable web articles. On-the-ground, accurate political reporting would be fundamental, connecting leaders' policy decisions to their impact on readers' daily lives.
The bilingual commitment runs through its staffing and products. Jannelle Calderón, the Nevadan / El Nevadense newsletter editor, is a bilingual storyteller who previously reported for The Nevada Independent and is a graduate of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Alongside the main newsletter she writes Vegas Somos, a Spanish-language newsletter breaking down the issues that matter most to Nevada's Latino communities. The newsroom's own description of her work emphasizes highlighting the human side of policy and showcasing Nevada's vibrant cultures.
Values and Editorial Stance
The Nevadan does not claim a both-sides neutrality. Its launch statement said it would be unafraid to call out falsehoods, that there was no room for a both-sides mentality on the defining issues of the time, and that its work would be guided by values including standing up for working people, treating neighbors with compassion, defending personal freedoms and supporting democratic institutions. That stance matches its parent network's open position: in launching Nevada, McGowan argued that Courier's openness about its partisan lens and funding differentiated it from pink-slime networks on the right and left.
At the same time, the launch promised a community publication, not only a political one. The Nevadan said it would explore restaurants, find the best tacos in East Las Vegas, preview festivals, profile community leaders who deserved public recognition and compile weekend things to do, and its published sections, including Community and Things To Do coverage alongside state politics, health care, jobs and local video, reflect that mix.
People
Emilia Pablo Bazan fronted the launch as the newsroom's founding voice in Nevada, inviting readers to send story ideas and suggestions. Calderón edits its newsletters, with Paula Solis editing newsletter editions; a newsletter explaining why Death Valley stays open in summer, for example, was written by Calderón and edited by Solis. Content producer and social media manager Araceli Cruz, whose work has appeared in The Guardian, Teen Vogue, Refinery29, Mic, The Cut, Zora, The Village Voice and Rolling Stone, represents the network's social-first staffing on the Nevada team.
The newsroom is operated through Courier's national infrastructure. Its newsletter lists a mailing address care of The Nevadan / Courier Newsroom in Long Island City, New York, and its hiring, including for roles such as social strategist interns, runs through Courier, whose remote internships support the state newsrooms' content creation, publishing, copywriting, analytics and influencer work.
Nevada Coverage
The Nevadan's coverage connects Carson City and Washington decisions to Nevada daily life: state government and elections, health care, jobs and the cost of living, immigration and public agencies, and community affairs in Las Vegas and across the state. Its community pages in 2026 carried explainers on subjects such as Nevadans' rights at peaceful protests, a new state law requiring disclosure of AI-generated images in elections under a 10,000-dollar penalty, reporting on the state DMV's communications with federal immigration authorities, and Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford's plan to eliminate medical debt for thousands of residents with nonprofit help. Its lighter coverage ranges to Nevada places and food, including its Death Valley explainer and its East Las Vegas taco guides.
That blend is the editorial bet: that readers who come for a festival preview or a restaurant guide will stay for an explanation of a ballot question, and that policy reporting written for social feeds can reach Nevadans whom traditional outlets do not.
The Courier Network Context
The Nevadan joined a network of state sites that Courier lists as eleven affiliated websites, including the Copper Courier in Arizona, The Dogwood in Virginia, Up North News in Wisconsin, The 'Gander in Michigan, Cardinal & Pine in North Carolina, The Keystone in Pennsylvania, Floricua in Florida, Granite Post in New Hampshire, Courier Texas and Iowa Starting Line. Courier, founded in 2019, was launched by ACRONYM, divested that stake in April 2021, and is owned by Good Information Inc.
The network has been both praised as a response to local news decline and criticized as partisan infrastructure. NewsGuard has rated Courier sites as insufficiently transparent and generally unreliable while acknowledging their stories are generally fact-based; the Columbia Journalism Review has documented its political microtargeting; and Courier has spent heavily to promote its sites, including more than 12 million dollars on Meta platforms by 2024. In July 2025, Semafor reported the network's chief executive telling donors it had just had its worst fundraising quarter in six years. The Nevadan operates inside those economics.
Audience
The Nevadan's intended audience is explicit: Nevadans who spend most of their time online, including younger and Latino readers who do not consume traditional news and who can be reached at the tip of a finger on social media, in the launch essay's Spanish invitation to Spanish speakers and bilingual readers. In a state where Latinos are the engine of population growth and a decisive share of the electorate, a bilingual, social-first newsroom is aimed at the audience other Nevada outlets have struggled to serve.
Significance
The Nevadan is significant as Courier's bilingual experiment and its 2024-cycle expansion into one of America's most watched battleground states. Other Courier sites applied a progressive state-newsroom template in English; the Nevadan / El Nevadense applied it in two languages, in short-form video and carousels, for a state whose future is being written by the very communities it set out to reach. Its success or failure is therefore a test not only of a network, but of whether social-first, bilingual local journalism can engage the news-avoidant Nevadans its founders described at launch.
