Jonathan Mark Ralston is an American journalist, political commentator, and former talk show host. His show, Ralston Live, was seen each weekday on the two Nevada PBS stations in Las Vegas and Reno until his show was discontinued on June 21, 2016. In 2017, Ralston launched The Nevada Independent, a nonprofit online news site devoted to Nevada business and government.
Biography
Ralston was born in Morristown, New Jersey and grew up in Buffalo, New York, where he attended Williamsville South High School. He received a BA in English from Cornell University in 1981, and an MA in Journalism from the University of Michigan in 1983. After completing his education Ralston moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, to become a night-time police reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 1984. In 1986, he was assigned to cover politics and in 1989, he became a full-time political columnist for that paper. In 1999, he sold his newsletter side project to Greenspun Media Group and began writing for the Las Vegas Sun, one of their newspapers. His book, The Anointed One: An Inside Look At Nevada Politics, was published in September 2000. It recounted how Kenny Guinn won his first election, the Nevada governor's race in 1998, with backing from the casino industry and political insiders. In September 2012, Ralston left the Las Vegas Sun. In 2014, Ralston appeared as an actor in the Amazon original seriesAlpha House. His KSNVRalston ReportsTV show ended on December 12, 2014. On January 7, 2015, he began writing for the Reno Gazette-Journal. As of 2016, he was primarily known in Nevada for his television show, Ralston Live, a different email newsletter called Flash, and a twice-weekly column for the Reno Gazette-Journal. His show was discontinued on June 21, 2016 by KLVX and KNPB.
Nevada election predictions and analysis
Ralston is known nationally for his analysis of Nevada elections, especially based upon early voting results. He has made appearances as a political commentator on various TV shows and networks including Meet the Press, MSNBC, Fox News and PBS. Ralston accurately predicted Sen. Harry Reid's victory in 2010 based on his early vote predictions, despite polling showing that Reid would lose. He accurately predicted both the presidential election in Nevada and the Nevada Senate race in 2016 on the basis of early voting data.
Reporting on the Nevada Democratic state convention in 2016, Ralston tweeted that supporters of U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders had thrown chairs. The Associated Press filed a similar report. NPR originally repeated Ralston's reporting as did other media outlets, but removed it after only being able to find evidence of a chair being lifted in the air but not of one being thrown. Snopes, a website that documents and debunks urban legends and rumors, identified Ralston as the source for the statement that Sanders supporters had thrown chairs and said there was no evidence to support it.
''The Nevada Independent''
Ralston's plans to launch a digital news publication in early 2017 called The Nevada Independent were first reported in November 2016. The site launched on January 17, 2017 and Ralston announced he would disclose the sources of all its donations.
