Type | Daily subscription newspaper |
---|---|
Format | Broadsheet |
Owner(s) | News + Media Capital Group LLC [1] [2] |
Publisher | J. Keith Moyer |
Editor | Glenn Cook |
Founded | September 18, 1909 (as the Clark County Review) |
Headquarters | 1111 West Bonanza Road Las Vegas, Nevada 89106 U.S. |
Circulation | 172,366 Daily 204,036 Sunday(as of 2007) [3] |
ISSN | 1097-1645 |
Website | www |
The Las Vegas Review-Journal is a daily subscription newspaper published in Las Vegas, Nevada, since 1909. It is the largest circulating daily newspaper in Nevada and one of two daily newspapers in the Las Vegas area.
The Review-Journal has a joint operating agreement with The Greenspun Corporation-owned Las Vegas Sun , which runs through 2040. In 2005, the Sun ceased afternoon publication and began distribution as a section of the Review-Journal. On March 18, 2015, the sale of the newspaper's parent company, Stephens Media LLC, to New Media Investment Group was completed. [4] In December 2015, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson purchased the newspaper for $140 million via News + Media Capital Group LLC. [5] GateHouse Media, a subsidiary of New Media Investment Group, was retained to manage the newspaper. $140 million was considered a steep price amounting to a 69% gain for New Media Investment Group after owning the newspaper for nine months. [6] [7]
The Clark County Review was first printed in 1909. It was renamed as the Las Vegas Review in 1926 when owner Frank Garside, who owned several other Nevada papers, brought in Al Cahlan as a partner.
In March 1929, the Clark County Journal began publication, and in July of that year, the Review bought the Journal and shortly thereafter began co-publication as the Las Vegas Evening Review-Journal. In the early 1940s, Cahlan and Garside's company, Southwestern Publishing, bought the Las Vegas Age, from Charles P. "Pop" Squires, which began publication in 1905 and was the oldest surviving paper in Las Vegas. The word "evening" was dropped from the name in 1949 when Garside left the company and Cahlan struck an agreement with Donald W. Reynolds and his Donrey Media Group. [8] [9]
In 1953, the RJ signed on KORK, one of Las Vegas' earliest radio stations. Two years later, it signed on Las Vegas' third television station, KLRJ-TV, in 1955, later changing the calls to KORK-TV. The station was sold in 1979, changing its call letters again first to KVBC, and then, in 2010, to the current KSNV-DT. [10] [11] [12]
In December 1960, Reynolds exercised a buyout option with Cahlan, and bought the paper. [13]
Reynolds died in 1993, and longtime friend Jack Stephens bought his company, renamed it Stephens Media and moved the company's headquarters to Las Vegas. The Review-Journal entered into its first Joint Operating Agreement, or JOA, with the Sun in 1990, which was amended in 2005. In early 2015, the Stephens Media newspapers were sold to New Media Investment Group. [4] [14]
The current Review-Journal headquarters was built in 1971. A new $40 million printing press was installed in 2000 as part of a four-year, 152,000-square-foot expansion project. The two printing presses weigh 910 tons and consist of 16 towers. They were the largest presses in the world when they were installed. [15]
The newspaper has won the "General Excellence" award from the Nevada Press Association several times and has also won the "Freedom of the Press" award for its First Amendment battles from the statewide organization. [16]
When the paper was sold in 2015, it was initially unclear who the buyer was. The purchaser was a limited liability company, News + Media Capital Group LLC, and the only name listed on the documents was Michael Schroeder, a publisher of four small regional newspapers in Connecticut. [17] At a December 10 staff meeting informing the Review-Journal staff that the paper had been sold, Schroeder was introduced as the manager. He refused to say who the owners of News + Media were, saying that employees should "focus on [their] jobs...and don't worry about who [the owners] are." [18] Jason Taylor, the Review-Journal's publisher, said only that the ownership included "multiple owner/investors, that some are from Las Vegas, and that in face-to-face meetings he has been assured that the group will not meddle in the newspaper’s editorial content.” [17] There were widespread rumors that the primary buyer was Sheldon Adelson, and a week later three Review-Journal reporters confirmed that the purchase had been orchestrated by Adelson's son-in-law Patrick Dumont on Adelson's behalf. [19] A month before the new owner was revealed, three reporters at the newspaper received an assignment from corporate management: Spend two weeks monitoring the activity of three Clark County judges. One of the judges was District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez, who was hearing a long-running wrongful termination lawsuit filed against Adelson and his company, [20] a lawsuit alleging that Adelson's Macao casino, Sands Macao, was connected to the Chinese Triads. [21]
In January a set of editorial principles were drawn up and publicized to ensure the newspaper's independence and to deal with possible conflicts of interest involving Adelson's ownership. In February Craig Moon, a veteran of the Gannett organization, was announced as the new publisher and promptly withdrew those principles from publication. He also began to personally review, edit, and sometimes kill stories about an Adelson-promoted proposal for the future Las Vegas Raiders football stadium. [22] In the months since, reporters say that stories about Adelson, and particularly about an ongoing lawsuit involving his business dealings in Macau, have been heavily edited by top management. [23]
The new ownership triggered numerous departures. On December 23 the paper's editor Mike Hengel stepped down in a "voluntary buyout". [24] Many reporters and editors left the newspaper citing "curtailed editorial freedom, murky business dealings and unethical managers." [25] Longtime columnist John L. Smith resigned after he was told he could no longer write anything about Adelson, a frequent focus of his reporting up until then. [25] Within six months, all three of the reporters who broke the story of Adelson's ownership had left the paper. [25]
The Review-Journal is responsible for several other niche publications:
The Review-Journal also operates several Nevada newspapers:
Las Vegas Review-Journal launched its website as LVRJ.com on Jan. 15, 1997. By the end of the year, it was recognized as one of the top online papers in the U.S. by the Internet Job Source. The Review-Journal also operated LasVegas.com as a general information site. [26] LVRJ.com was redesigned in 2000 and the site was rebranded as Reviewjournal.com two years later. In 2012, the RJ launched its first apps for iPhone, Android, and iPad. A major online redesign launched in April 2017 with an emphasis on video. The RJ built a studio on its downtown campus to produce high-end live and on-demand videos for news, politics and sports.
Programs include:
In addition to delivering its shows on the Review-Journal website, the Review-Journal launched a Roku app in early 2018. [27]
In 2018 and 2022, Editor and Publisher magazine named the Review-Journal as one of 10 newspapers in the United States on the magazine's annual list of "10 Newspapers That Do It Right". [28] [29]
In 1998, the newspaper killed a story about casino mogul Steve Wynn's sexual harassment of employees. The newspaper reported about the axed story in 2018, after The Wall Street Journal published a story in which dozens of people alleged that they had been victims of sexual misconduct by Wynn. [30]
In 2010, the Review-Journal's then-owner Stephens Media launched a copyright enforcement company called Righthaven LLC, which began a series of legal suits claiming copyright infringements. [31] [32] The company's practice was to search the internet for uses of Review-Journal material, purchase the copyright for that material from the newspaper and then file suit for copyright infringement. According to The Wall Street Journal , "Defendants typically get no warning, no take-down request, just a suit." [33] Between March and August 2010, Righthaven LLC filed copyright infringement suits against 107 blogs, political forums, website operators, and others. [34] [35] [36]
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, together with other pro bono attorneys, filed an Answer and Counterclaim on behalf of Democratic Underground, a political website that Righthaven sued after a Democratic Underground member posted a five-sentence excerpt from a Review-Journal article; the counterclaim, filed against Stephens Media and Righthaven asserted that alleged a "sham relationship" between the newspaper and Righthaven, and accused Righthaven of copyright fraud. [37] [38] [39]
In March 2011, a federal judge dismissed a suit brought by Righthaven, stating that no evidence had been presented that the forum posting of a Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial for 40 days for noncommercial use harmed the market value of the work. [40] In June 2011, another federal judge ruled that Righthaven had no standing to sue for copyright infringement, on the grounds that the original parties retain the actual copyrights. [41] In August 2011 another case was dismissed by Federal judge Philip Pro, who found that Righthaven had no standing to sue, and in any case the defendant's posting of a Review-Journal editorial to a blog was protected by fair use. [42] The next month the Review-Journal terminated its arrangement with Righthaven, [43] which was forced into receivership in November 2011 because of unpaid legal settlements. [44]
Owners
Publishers
Democratic Underground is an online community for members of the United States Democratic Party. Its membership is restricted by policy to those who are supportive of the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates for political office.
Stephen Alan Wynn is an American real estate developer and art collector. He was known for his involvement in the luxury casino and hotel industry, prior to being forced to step down. Early in his career he oversaw the construction and operation of several notable Las Vegas and Atlantic City hotels, including the Golden Nugget, the Golden Nugget Atlantic City, The Mirage, Treasure Island, the Bellagio, and Beau Rivage in Mississippi, and he played a pivotal role in the resurgence and expansion of the Las Vegas Strip in the 1990s. In 2000, Wynn sold his company, Mirage Resorts, to MGM Grand Inc., resulting in the formation of MGM Mirage. Wynn later took his company Wynn Resorts public in an initial public offering and was Wynn Resorts' CEO and Chairman of the Board until February 6, 2018, when he announced his resignation. He is a prominent donor to the Republican Party and was the finance chair of the Republican National Committee from January 2017 to January 2018, when he resigned amid sexual misconduct allegations.
Robin Douglas Leach was a British-American entertainment reporter and writer from London. After beginning his career as a print journalist, first in England and then in the United States, he became best known for hosting the television series Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous from 1984 to 1995. The show focused on profiling well-known celebrities and their lavish homes, cars and other materialistic details.
Las Vegas Sands Corp. is an American casino and resort company with corporate headquarters in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. It was founded by Sheldon G. Adelson and his partners out of the Sands Hotel and Casino on the Las Vegas Strip. The Sands was demolished and redeveloped as The Venetian, opening in 1999. An adjacent resort, The Palazzo, opened in 2007. Both resorts were sold in 2022.
Sheldon Gary Adelson was an American businessman, investor, political donor, and philanthropist. He was the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which owns the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore, and the parent company of Venetian Macao Limited, which operated The Venetian Las Vegas and the Sands Expo and Convention Center before selling the properties in early 2022. He owned the Israeli daily newspaper Israel Hayom, the Israeli weekly newspaper Makor Rishon, and the American daily newspaper the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Irwin Molasky was an American real estate developer and philanthropist from Las Vegas, Nevada. He was the Chairman of The Molasky Group of Companies.
Stephens Media LLC was a Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, diversified media investment company. It owned stakes in the California Newspapers Partnership and the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette.
GateHouse Media Inc. was an American publisher of locally based print and digital media. It published 144 daily newspapers, 684 community publications, and over 569 local-market websites in 38 states. Its parent company, New Media Investment Group, acquired Gannett in 2019, with the combined company using the Gannett name and maintaining its headquarters in Virginia.
Marc J. Randazza is an American First Amendment attorney and a legal commentator on InfoWars.
A copyright troll is a party that enforces copyrights it owns for purposes of making money through strategic litigation, in a manner considered unduly aggressive or opportunistic, sometimes without producing or licensing the works it owns for paid distribution. Critics object to the activity because they believe it does not encourage the production of creative works, but instead makes money through the inequities and unintended consequences of high statutory damages provisions in copyright laws intended to encourage creation of such works.
Righthaven LLC was a copyright enforcement company founded in early 2010. Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, it entered agreements from its partner newspapers after finding that their content had been copied to online sites without permission, in order to engage in litigation against the site owners for copyright infringement. The lawsuits were much criticized by commentators, who describe the activity as copyright trolling and the company as a "lawsuit factory". Righthaven LLC's CEO, Steven Gibson, who is currently a partner at Las Vegas law firm Gibson & True LLP, regularly spoke to the media about Righthaven.
Righthaven LLC. v. Democratic Underground LLC, 791 F. Supp. 2d 968, was a copyright infringement case which determined that a contract giving a party right to sue on behalf of a copyright holder does not give the party legal standing to file such lawsuits. This case is one of over 200 similar cases filed by Righthaven against media outlets using content from Stephens Media. Judge Roger L. Hunt ruled that Righthaven lacked standing to file a copyright infringement suit and ordered Righthaven to show cause within two weeks why it should not be sanctioned for failure to disclose Stephens Media as an interested party.
Miriam Adelson is an Israeli-American physician, political donor, and philanthropist. She was married to Sheldon Adelson from 1991 until his death in 2021. After his death, she became the owner of the Las Vegas Sands and as of May 2024, is estimated to be the fifth richest woman in America with a net worth of $34.2 billion. Adelson is the richest Israeli in the world and the 42nd richest person in the world according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, while Forbes places her as the 44th.
Albert Edmunds Cahlan, aka A. E. Cahlan or Al Cahlan was an American newspaper publisher and prominent civic leader during the mid-20th century in the forming of Las Vegas. During his lifetime, he was best known for his unabashed approach to the politics of mid-century Las Vegas, which he often wrote about in his daily column.
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.
Cannabis in Nevada became legal for recreational use on January 1, 2017, following the passage of Question 2 on the 2016 ballot with 54% of the vote. The first licensed sales of recreational cannabis began on July 1, 2017.
Allegiant Stadium is a domed multi-purpose stadium located in Paradise, Nevada, southwest of adjacent Las Vegas. Opened in 2020, it is the home field of the Las Vegas Raiders of the National Football League (NFL) and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) Rebels college football team. The stadium also hosts the Vegas Kickoff Classic in early September and the Las Vegas Bowl in December. The stadium hosted Super Bowl LVIII in February 2024 and will host WrestleMania 41 in 2025.
The Oakland Raiders relocation to Las Vegas was a successful effort by the owner of the Oakland Raiders to relocate the American football team from Oakland, California, to Paradise, Nevada, after the 2019 National Football League (NFL) season. The team began play as the Las Vegas Raiders in the 2020 NFL season.
Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press is a 2017 Netflix documentary directed by Brian Knappenberger. The documentary is themed around the effects of big money on American journalism. The documentary focuses on two incidents: Peter Thiel financing wrestler Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker Media, and casino owner Sheldon Adelson's secret purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Elizabeth Goff Gonzalez is a retired United States judge who served on Nevada's Eighth Judicial District Court, a state level trial court located in Las Vegas, Clark County, Nevada. She was a presiding judge in the civil division and served two years as chief judge. She is a nationally recognized business court judge, having served in the Las Vegas Business Court for over a decade, and as President of the American College of Business Court Judges. She has a long history of involvement with access to justice and pro bono legal services, and has received a number of honors for this work.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)