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It’s now something of a journalism parlor game: Who owns the Las Vegas Review-Journal?
Weighing in have been:
- The New York Times, in a story headlined “Reporters in Las Vegas Try to Crack Case of Who Owns Their Newspaper”
- The Los Angeles Times, with “Who bought the Las Vegas Review-Journal? It’s anybody’s guess”
- Forbes magazine, which got a Koch Brothers spokesman to say it isn’t them
- MSNBC, because the speculation is that there’s some political motive
- Jeb Bush, who met with the editorial board and then posted a Tweet
and just about anybody else with a journalism- or politics-related Twitter account or blog.
(Update: Here’s a statement from the Society of Professional Journalists.)
If you want the news media to ignore something, put it in a press release. If you want to keep it alive news cycle after news cycle, use the word ‘undisclosed’ when you make your announcement.
Anyway, I’m not convinced there’s a political angle here — not an obvious one, anyway.
The R-J has long been the voice of conservative politics in a city that tends to lean towards Democrats.
Could it focus its attention on one Republican nominee for the February caucuses? It could, but at this point to what effect and influence? Wouldn’t there be a fairly obvious credibility problem?
Remember, the R-J was a leading voice in the ‘Anybody But Harry’ campaign of 2010, endorsing Sharron Angle over the three-decade senator from Nevada, Harry Reid.
Clark County carried Obama in Nevada twice in general elections. Until 2014, Democrats were pretty much able to put whoever they wanted into the state Legislature from Southern Nevada. And don’t forget, inside the Review-Journal every day is the Las Vegas Sun, which has the opposite opinion on most partisan issues.
Yes, the R-J has broad influence in coverage, policy matters, market share and a significant presence on the web. All that, to me, makes it better positioned as a business purchase than as a political foil.
You know what would truly surprise me? If the Review-Journal endorses Bernie Sanders.
