It’s time for columnist to sign off

Leave the stage before the audience leaves you first.

Ergo, I'm outta here -- not from the R-J, just from this parcel of it, after a nearly three-year run.

Had "Mediaology" been a class on TV news, it would last one semester. Here, it's lasted the equivalent of nine. And the issues it addresses are finite. Believing they're infinite would result in increasingly strident, repetitive columns. Readers and TV pros deserve better.

(Plus, a critic can watch only so much local news before they place you in one of those stylish white coats with the wraparound sleeves.)

When "Mediaology" began, my esteemed colleague Norm Clarke had the comings and goings of media folks well-covered, which persuaded me to concentrate on larger topics about how they practice journalism. I hope it has proven worthwhile.

Particularly important to me was to refrain from getting personal with TV people. Poking fun at them, though the MO of some critics with nothing of substance to say, was of no interest to me, even if it would've tickled the baser instincts of some readers and fed the nyah-nyah impulse. Though many people interpret criticism of any kind as inherently personal, I was determined to confine it to professional issues.

Writing columns over nearly 30 years has yielded interesting moments. After writing one at another Vegas paper, ex-News-3 anchor Sue Manteris got so mad that she placed my column mug atop the body of a woman in a bikini and pranced it across the screen. Writing in New York in the early '90s, one column criticizing Howard Stern earned me a petulant lambasting from him on national radio. Penning a column in Tennessee got me a date with a smitten reader. (Why was she smitten? Damned if I know.)

Here, the Nina Radetich scandal whopper was a gold strike of ethics material. Alicia Jacobs? My car has yet to explode upon ignition, yet I suspect her angry spirit will hover over me for eternity -- haunting and whining, haunting and whining, haunting and whining.

Shout-outs are due, given graciousness shown me by Paula Francis, Ron Futrell, Jim Snyder, the Wagners, Kendall Tenney, Sophia Choi, Gary Waddell, Dave Courvoisier, Chris Saldana, Gerard Ramalho, Steve Ryan and Jerry Brown. Also thanks to George Knapp, whom, despite our disagreement over his coverage of the John Fredericks imbroglio, I respect, and who showed me the same. (Besides, I can't help but like someone whose passion for the movie "Network" matches mine.)

Appreciation goes to news directors Ron Comings, Bob Stoldal and Adam P. Bradshaw, who always dealt with me fairly, as did station officials Jim Rogers, Emily Neilson and News-3's Lisa Howfield, who made herself available for comment even when it was difficult and uncomfortable.

Gratitude in bulk goes to you, readers. So many of you offered me positive feedback and encouragement when I wasn't sure if this column served a useful purpose.

My byline will still appear over media-related stories, as well as arts coverage. Here, however, I'll wrap with this biblical quote I hope is true:

"I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith."

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0256.