The ''Las Vegas Review-Journal'' is a daily subscription

newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as politics, business, spor ...

published in

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Veg ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

, 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. In December 2015, casino magnate Sheldon Adelson purchased the newspaper for $140 million via News + Media Capital Group LLC. 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.

History

The ''Clark County Review'' was first printed in 1909 and became 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. 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. In December 1960, Reynolds exercised a buyout option with Cahlan, and bought the paper. Reynolds died in 1993, and longtime friend Jack Stephens bought his company, renamed it

Stephens Media Stephens Media LLC was a Las Vegas, Nevada, diversified media investment company. It owned stakes in the California Newspapers Partnership and the ''Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette''. The company had been expanding its interactive Internet ...

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. 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. 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 First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...

battles from the statewide organization.

Sheldon Adelson estate ownership

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. 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

heir Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, titles, debts, entitlements, privileges, rights, and obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ among societies and have changed over time. Offic ...

jobs...and don't worry about who

he owners He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

are." 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.” 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. 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, a lawsuit alleging that Adelson's Macao casino, Sands Macao, was connected to the Chinese Triads. 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. 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. The new ownership triggered numerous departures. On December 23 the paper's editor Mike Hengel stepped down in a "voluntary buyout". Many reporters and editors left the newspaper citing "curtailed editorial freedom, murky business dealings and unethical managers." 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. Within six months, all three of the reporters who broke the story of Adelson's ownership had left the paper.

Other publications

The ''Review-Journal'' is responsible for several other niche publications: * ''El Tiempo'' – A free weekly Spanish language paper distributed around the Las Vegas area * ''Neon'' – a weekend publication distributed through the ''Review-Journal'' that covers music, movies, arts, and dining. * ''rjmagazine'' – A Sunday magazine for home delivery subscribers, established in March 2020. The quarterly publication focuses on diverse topics including lifestyle, food, events, home trends, and people. The ''Review-Journal'' also operates several Nevada newspapers: * ''Boulder City Review'' – A weekly paper that debuted Oct. 29, 2009. The print edition is distributed on Thursday mornings. * ''Pahrump Valley Times'' – A bi-weekly newspaper. The print edition is distributed on Wednesday and Friday mornings. * ''Tonopah Times-Bonanza & Goldfield News'' – Serving communities in Nye and Esmeralda counties since 1901.

Website and video

''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. 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: * ''Reporter Roundtable'' – Interviews and panel discussions with reporters covering major stories * ''Vegas Nation'' – Coverage of Raiders football * ''Golden Edge'' – Coverage of the Las Vegas Golden Knights hockey team * ''Covering the Cage'' – UFC and MMA coverage * ''Nevada Politics Today'' * ''Sports Betting Spotlight'' In addition to delivering its shows on the ''Review-Journal'' website, the ''Review-Journal'' launched a Roku app in early 2018.

Accolades

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".

Controversy

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.

Copyright infringement litigation

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. 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 ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', "Defendants typically get no warning, no take-down request, just a suit." Between March and August 2010, Righthaven LLC filed copyright infringement suits against 107 blogs, political forums, website operators, and others. The

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. The foundation was formed on 10 July 1990 by John Gilmore, John Perry Barlow and Mitch Kapor to promote Internet ...

, together with other ''

pro bono ( en, 'for the public good'), usually shortened to , is a Latin phrase for professional work undertaken voluntarily and without payment. In the United States, the term typically refers to provision of legal services by legal professionals for pe ...

'' attorneys, filed an Answer and Counterclaim on behalf of

Democratic Underground 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. Histo ...

, 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. 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. 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. 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. The next month the ''Review-Journal'' terminated its arrangement with Righthaven, which was forced into receivership in November 2011 because of unpaid legal settlements.

Owners and publishers (past and present)

Owners # Frank Garside (1909–1949) # A. E. Cahlan (1926–1961) # Donald W. Reynolds (1949–1993) # Jack Stephens (1993–2015) # New Media Investment Group (2015) # Sheldon Adelson (2015–2021) # News + Media Capital Group LLC (2015–present) Publishers # A. E. Cahlan (1926–1961) # Fred W. Smith (1961–) # Sherman Frederick (1992–2010) # Bob Brown (2010–2014) # Ed Moss (2014) # Mark Ficarra (2014–2015) # Jason Taylor (2015–2016) # Craig Moon (2016–2018) # J. Keith Moyer (2018–present)

Current and past publishers and contributors

* Norm Clarke, wrote the column "Vegas Confidential" from 1999 to 2016 *

Ned Day Edward Gately Day, Jr. (April 5, 1945 – September 3, 1987) was an American journalist and newspaper reporter who was known for taking on mobsters who dominated a number of Las Vegas casinos in the 1970s and '80s. Biography Day's father, also nam ...

, columnist whose car was bombed in 1986 *

Denver Dickerson Denver Dickerson (April 23, 1914 – July 19, 1981) was Speaker of the Nevada Assembly in 1943 and served in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was appointed Secretary of Guam in 1963 by U.S. President John F. Kennedy. As the office included ...

, former editorial director who became Speaker of the Nevada Assembly * Major Garrett, former reporter who became CBS' Chief White House correspondent * Jeff German, former investigative reporter found fatally stabbed outside his home * Paul Gutierrez, former reporter who went on to report for ESPN *

John Katsilometes John Katsilometes is an American entertainment columnist in Las Vegas, Nevada. He writes the "Kats!" column for the ''Las Vegas Review-Journal''. Katsilometes was the Nevada Press Association's journalist of the year in 2013 and has also won f ...

, celebrity and entertainment columnist *

Lorna Kesterson Lorna J. Kesterson (December 30, 1925 – January 16, 2012) was an American journalist, newspaper editor and politician. She served as the first female mayor of the city of Henderson, Nevada, for two consecutive four-year terms from 1985 to 1993 ...

, former reporter and mayor of Henderson, Nevada * David Lamb, former reporter * Heidi Knapp Rinella, restaurant critic * Robin Leach, former entertainment reporter for the newspaper's niche division * Gary Martin, former Washington bureau chief *

Michael Ramirez Michael Patrick Ramirez (born May 11, 1961) is an American cartoonist for the ''Las Vegas Review-Journal''. His cartoons present mostly conservative viewpoints. He is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. Early life and education Ramirez was born ...

, cartoonist * Donald W. Reynolds, owner from 1949 to 1993 * Wayne Allyn Root, politics opinion columnist * Neal Rubin, former features writer *

Debra Saunders Debra J. Saunders is an American syndicated columnist and fellow with the Discovery Institute's Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership. Her column is syndicated by Creators Syndicate and is carried by newspapers in the United States. Saunders serv ...

, White House correspondent *

Joe Schoenmann Joe Schoenmann (born in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin) is an American journalist and nonfiction author who has lived in Las Vegas since 1997. Education Schoenmann graduated from River Valley High School in Spring Green, Wisconsin. He went on to gra ...

, former reporter *

Ira Stoll Ira Stoll (born 1972) is managing editor of '' Education Next'', an education policy journal based at the ''Harvard Kennedy School''. He is editor of FutureOfCapitalism.com, a columnist for the ''Algemeiner'', and he writes a column that appears ...

, columnist * Vin Suprynowicz, former columnist *

Jude Wanniski Jude Thaddeus Wanniski (June 17, 1936 – August 29, 2005) was an American journalist, conservative commentator, and political economist. Early life and education Wanniski was born in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, the son of Constance, who worked at ...

, former political columnist

References

External links

''Las Vegas Review-Journal''
official website {{Authority control 1909 establishments in Nevada Daily newspapers published in the United States Newspapers published in Las Vegas Publications established in 1909