[NLVgal]

According to the article, Stephens Media who owns the RJ, is looking to dissolve the JOA between the LV Sun and the RJ. This would effectively kill the LV Sun, according to editor Brian Greenspun, leaving us with only one local newspaper / editorial point of view.

The way they set about it, according to the article and court documents is by going behind Brian Greenspun's back and offering his siblings 70k a piece, which they accepted. It's being fought out in the courts now. Here are a couple of articles. After the Righthaven debacle, Stephens media has a lot of cojones to be fighting this out in court.

The LV Sun is the only local paper to have won a Pulitzer. In my opinion, LV becoming a one newspaper town would be a very bad thing. The RJ publisher contends that publications such as apartment guides would fill the gap left by the LV Sun.

Sun lawyer: Apartment guides don

Sun Publisher Greenspun sues to block R-J from gaining newspaper monopoly - Las Vegas Sun News

[johninvegas]

The way I get it, the RJ is tired of funding the Sun. So it looks like a financial decision. Just look at the smallness of the paper today and you can see they are looking for cut costs by any and all means. I gather the Greenspun clan is not willing to fund Brian's homage to his father anymore. Perhaps someone can come in and put some much needed capital into the paper and continue it once the JOA is disolved.

[macgeek]

We seem to have a right leaning and a left leaning publication.
We need to keep both to be 'fair and balanced'

I personally like LVsun much more since the RJ's righthaven debacle

Jonathan

[ScoopLV]

We have a choice between a paper that is an unabashed cheerleader for the conservatives; and one that is an unabashed cheerleader for the centrists. (Neither paper is exactly "liberal." Las Vegas Weekly fills that role.)

One paper is little more than a local millionaire's vanity paper. But at least we get some news out of the Sun, as evidenced in their Pulitzer (Which they should stop crowing about. It's been a few years. It's tacky to keep the announcement on the masthead.)

The other sells their "news" space just as surely as they do their advertising space. Ever read ANYTHING negative about big developers in the Real Estate section? Ever see Heidi pan a restaurant that advertises on Wednesdays? So much of the R-J is "infomercial" that it is difficult to separate the copy from the ad-copy anywhere other than the A section. (And even then, I wouldn't be surprised to see ad creep -- stories advocating purchasing gold in the business section right next to ads for bullion dealers, for instance. That's where the industry is heading, after all.)

And then we have the editorial department, which claims to be even-handed, while handing Ann Coulter, Charles Krauthammer and Pat Buchanan all the space they want.

Print news in this city is a chaotic mess. Just like our community in general. How can we expect anything to get better in this valley if the state of our newspapers is so abysmal?

[Willy702]

Where exactly are newspapers not chaotic messes right now? Maybe half a dozen cities?

[ScoopLV]

Read this if newspapers interest you: » Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable Clay Shirky


I completely agree with the writer. The internet has broken the newspaper industry. There's no saving it, and we have no idea what the replacement will be. Because we're still in the middle of this electronic/social revolution. We're too deep in the forest to see what might be on the horizon.

But I guarantee this -- it's not newspapers as we know them. That's a dead business model. Like telephone directories and buggy whips.

[NLVgal]

Originally Posted by johninvegas

The way I get it, the RJ is tired of funding the Sun. So it looks like a financial decision. Just look at the smallness of the paper today and you can see they are looking for cut costs by any and all means. I gather the Greenspun clan is not willing to fund Brian's homage to his father anymore. Perhaps someone can come in and put some much needed capital into the paper and continue it once the JOA is disolved.

I don't think it is purely a matter of the RJ "funding" the LV Sun. They are compensated for their troubles. Also, they have asked that the Greenspuns sign a five-year non compete agreement which would effectively kill all of the other Greenspun Media publications, including Vegas Inc. and the Las Vegas Weekly.

[Muonic]

Originally Posted by ScoopLV

Read this if newspapers interest you: » Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable Clay Shirky


I completely agree with the writer. The internet has broken the newspaper industry. There's no saving it, and we have no idea what the replacement will be. Because we're still in the middle of this electronic/social revolution. We're too deep in the forest to see what might be on the horizon.

But I guarantee this -- it's not newspapers as we know them. That's a dead business model. Like telephone directories and buggy whips.

Yep, newspapers are pretty much dead. It wouldn't surprise me if they are all gone, before too long. Even the "big city" papers are going bust. The Chicago Sun-Times just fired their entire photography staff, in an effort to save money. And that includes a Pulitzer prize winning photographer. They are going to have the reporters snap pictures with their iPhones, instead.

Having two or more papers in the city would be great, but that seems very unlikely anymore. For better or worse, the internet rules the news business these days.

[ScoopLV]

I think it's a done deal. The R-J will win, and Brian will lose. Yes, the valley will be a poorer place having only one newspaper. But really, you can't call the Sun much of a newspaper. Three or four articles each day, and a little blurb on the inside front page explaining why they exist at all. No advertising, no classifieds, nothing that actually keeps a newspaper going.

I may like the Sun more than the R-J, but it is hard to describe in a business sense as anything other than a parasite. The Sun doesn't bring anything to the table financially. They write stories and editorials that Stephens (a particularly vile company) loathes, and they don't bring in a red cent of revenue. Of COURSE the R-J wants them gone. Monopoly is the last gasp for a dying industry before newspapers start shuttering -- leaving cities with no newspapers at all.

Cities Without Newspapers *|*American Journalism Review

[owelles]

Originally Posted by ScoopLV

Cities Without Newspapers *|*American Journalism Review

This is a 4 1/2-year-old story. The landscape has changed significantly since it was written and not for the better.