Why the Silence? A Tale of Two Arrests in Reno Media

Our Town Reno and Mike’s Reno Report both have reported on Karma Box Project’s Matthew Grimsley’s arrest so we urge you to subscribe and follow them, but in the meantime let’s ask ourselves a very simple question:

Why does the Reno Gazette Journal blast out a major story on former Reno councilman Paul McKenzie’s first domestic-violence arrest over Thanksgiving — yet say absolutely nothing when Matthew Grimsley, a third-time domestic-battery arrestee who works for Karma Box Project as a Safe Camp supervisor, is taken into custody?

The contrast couldn’t be louder.

One arrest becomes front-page news at the RGJ.
The other — involving a publicly funded homeless-services operator, at a county-run campus, in a role involving public trust — gets… silence.

So we ask:

• Is it the RGJ’s relationship with Grant Denton and Karma Box Project?

• Is it the county’s propaganda princesses leaning on media outlets — the same ones known to threaten to withhold information when reporters don’t “play nice”?

• Did Commission Chair Alexis Hill — Denton’s vocal political defender — pick up the phone?

• Or is it simply selective outrage, where political figures get blasted and county-favored contractors get the kid-glove treatment?

• Could it be they need website clicks? And an McKenzie story will deliver that.

We don’t know — because nobody at RGJ seems interested in explaining why the public deserves one story but not the other.

But here’s what we do know:

Karma Box Project operates with taxpayer dollars.
Their staff interact daily with vulnerable populations.
And any arrest involving someone in that position — let alone a repeat domestic-battery case — is absolutely relevant to public oversight.

The public deserves answers.
The public deserves transparency.
And the public deserves equal treatment in reporting — not cherry-picked narratives based on who’s politically protected.