Stephens Media LLC was a

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a landlocked state in the Western United States. It borders Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. Nevada is the seventh-most extensive, th ...

, United States, diversified media investment company. It owned stakes in the California Newspapers Partnership and the ''Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette''. The company once had an interactive Internet business, operating online sites for its newspapers and portal sites like LasVegas.com, which is licensed to

Greenspun Media Group The Greenspun Media Group is an independent company and was a wholly owned subsidiary of The Greenspun Corporation. Headquartered in Henderson, Nevada, the group has over 60 years experience in the Las Vegas Valley. Beginning with the ''Las Veg ...

. The company was also a partner in the California Newspapers Partnership with MediaNews and Gannett. The company also formed Northwest Arkansas Newspapers LLC in November 2009, a joint venture with WEHCO Media Inc., in Arkansas. On November 28, 2010, Stephens Media Iowa, LLC, a subsidiary of Stephens Media, acquired several newspapers, including the ''Ames Tribune'', ''Boone News-Republican'', ''Dallas County News'', ''Nevada Journal'', ''Ames About People & Advertiser'', ''Tri-County Times'', and ''Algona Upper Des Moines'' from Midlands Newspapers Inc., a subsidiary of the

Omaha World-Herald The ''Omaha World-Herald'' is a daily newspaper in the midwestern United States, the primary newspaper of the Omaha-Council Bluffs metropolitan area. It was locally owned from its founding in 1885 until 2020, when it was sold to the newspaper ...

Company. In August, 2011, the Algona Upper Des Moines was sold to Hallmark Media. In February 2015, Stephens Media was purchased by

GateHouse Media 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 ...

for $102.8 million. In December 2015, GateHouse sold the ''

Las Vegas Review-Journal 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' ...

'', Stephens Media's largest paper, to casino magnate

Sheldon Adelson Sheldon Gary Adelson (August 4, 1933 – January 11, 2021) was an American businessman, investor, and political donor. He was the founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Las Vegas Sands Corporation, which founded the Marina Bay Sa ...

for $140 million.

History

The company was founded as Donrey Media Group by Arkansas media mogul Donald W. Reynolds and based in

Fort Smith, Arkansas Fort Smith is the List of municipalities in Arkansas, third-most populous city in Arkansas, United States, and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County, Arkansas, Sebastian County. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the pop ...

. After Reynolds died in 1993 at the age of 86, the company was sold to the Stephens family of Arkansas, known for their Little Rock investment banking business

Stephens Inc. Stephens Inc. is a privately held, independent financial services firm headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. As one of the largest privately owned investment banks in the United States, Stephens has 28 offices worldwide and employs more than 1,2 ...

Some of Donrey's properties were sold off, and the company moved its headquarters to

, home of its largest newspaper, the ''

''. The company was renamed Stephens Media Group in 2002. In June 2006, the company became known as Stephens Media LLC. The company has no connection with Stephens Media Group, a radio broadcasting company in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Copyright infringements

In 2010, Stephens Media contracted with the litigation firm Righthaven LLC, giving it the power to enforce the company's copyrights when online violators went beyond the bounds of fair use. More than 141 lawsuits were filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas. In a column published in the RJ shortly after the lawsuits began, former publisher Sherman Frederick, said the primary goal with the partnership with Righthaven was to deter theft of the company's copyrighted materials. He said if the company was successful, he hoped Righthaven would find other media clients. Eventually, WEHCO Media, which owns the ''

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette The ''Arkansas Democrat-Gazette'' is the newspaper of record in the U.S. state of Arkansas, printed in Little Rock with a northwest edition published in Lowell. It is distributed for sale in all 75 of Arkansas's counties. By virtue of one ...

'' and the ''

Chattanooga Times Free Press The ''Chattanooga Times Free Press'' is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and is distributed in the metropolitan Chattanooga region of southeastern Tennessee and northwestern Georgia. It is one of Tennessee's majo ...

'', signed on with the firm. MediaNews Group has also used Righthaven to file a copyright infringement suit. The aggressive enforcement of the Stephens Media copyrights by Righthaven was being closely watched by other publishers, as is the debate it has generated. Critics of the relatively new practice have coined it '

copyright troll A copyright troll is a party (person or company) 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 ...

ing', and argue that the purpose of such enforcement is to make a profit. In the Poynter article, former Stephens Media general counsel Mark Hinueber said the goal was to make sure the company's intellectual rights were protected. "We were seeing our entire work product in some stories just being right-clicked and cut and pasted into blogs, where people were selling Google ads around them and making money." The ''Las Vegas Sun'' thoroughly documented Righthaven's activities and the response. The ''Sun''’s outside law firm, Lewis and Roca, defended several of the Righthaven suits. Targets of the Righthaven lawsuits included bloggers, political forums, major political parties, and several of the newspaper's own sources including

NORML The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML ) is a social welfare organization based in Washington, D.C., that advocates for the reform of marijuana laws in the United States regarding both medical and non-medical use. Ac ...

, DailyPaul.com, InfoWars,

Free Republic Free Republic is a moderated Internet forum and chat site for self-described conservatives, primarily within the United States. It presents articles and comments posted pseudonymously by registered members, known as "Freepers", using screen name ...

, and others. On August 25, 2010, the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...

(EFF) announced that they would make efforts to assist Righthaven LLC defendants to the best of their ability. Righthaven's lawsuits came under increasing judicial scrutiny, which led to Righthaven being found in June 2011 to lack standing to sue for alleged infringement of copyrighted material to which it holds only a limited license, as such a license does not confer the right to sue for infringement. Sanctions against Righthaven and its attorney, Steven A. Gibson, of Nevada law firm Dickinson Wright, were being contemplated by one judge. Righthaven later had its assets seized to pay judgments levied against it in lawsuits it filed against those whom it said infringed on the copyrights of clients. As a result, copyrights which had been "sold" by Stephens to Righthaven were "sold back" to Stephens for $80,000 to pay legal fees.

Joint venture

In September 2009, Stephens Media and WEHCO Media Inc., owner of the ''Arkansas Democrat-Gazette'', announced plans to combine their newspaper operations in Northwest Arkansas and operate as a single company. The venture was approved in November 2009 by the U.S. Justice Department, and a new Arkansas limited liability company, Northwest Arkansas Newspaper LLC, was formed. Stephens Media sold its interest in the joint venture to WEHCO on May 5, 2016, which then assumed all control of operations of the newspapers in the joint venture. Newspapers in the joint venture included: *''The Springdale Morning News'' *''The Rogers Morning News'' *''Northwest Arkansas Times'' *''Benton County Daily Record''

Former Holdings

*''Stephens Press'' *''Hawgs Illustrated'' magazine, Springdale, Ark., part of joint venture with WEHCO Media *''Luxury Las Vegas'' magazine, Las Vegas, Nevada *''Arkansasnews.com''

Former newspapers by state

Arkansas *''

Southwest Times Record The ''Southwest Times Record'' is a daily newspaper in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and covers 10 counties in western Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma. It is owned and published by Gannett. History The ''Times Record'' began as three separate papers: ...

'', Fort Smith (DAILY) #''Press Argus Courier'', Van Buren (Weekly, Wed. & Sat.) #''Booneville Democrat'', Booneville (Weekly, Wed. & Sat.) #''Charleston Express'', Charleston (Weekly, Wed. & Sat.) #''Greenwood Democrat'', Greenwood (Weekly, Wed. & Sat.) #''Paris Express'', Paris (Weekly, Wed. & Sat.) *''Pine Bluff Commercial'', Pine Bluff (DAILY) #''White Hall Progress'', White Hall (Weekly, Wed. & Sat.) *Central Arkansas weeklies (group of weekly newspapers that operated under one publisher) #''North Little Rock Times'', North Little Rock (Weekly, Thurs.) #''Jacksonville Patriot'', Jacksonville (Weekly, Wed.) #''Sherwood Voice'', Sherwood (Weekly, Thurs.) #''Maumelle Monitor'', Maumelle (Weekly, Thurs.) #''Cabot Star-Herald'', Cabot (Weekly, Wed.) #''Lonoke Democrat'', Lonoke (Weekly, Thurs.) #''Carlisle Independent'', Carlisle (Weekly, Wed.) #''Hot Springs Village Voice'', Hot Springs Village (Weekly, Wed.) #''Saline County Voice'', Benton (Weekly, Thurs.) #''Van Buren County Democrat'', Clinton (Weekly, Thurs.) Iowa *''

Ames Tribune ''The Ames Tribune'' is a newspaper published Tuesday through Sunday based in Ames, Iowa. The newspaper is owned by Gannett. History In 1986, the ''Tribune'' was bought by Michael Gartner and Gary Gerlach, two former executives at ''The Des Mo ...

'', Ames, IA (DAILY) #''Boone News-Republican'', Boone, IA (DAILY) # ''Dallas County News'', (Weekly) #''Algona Upper Des Moines'', Algona, IA (Weekly) #''Nevada Journal'', Nevada, IA (Weekly) #''Tri-County Times'', Nevada, IA (Weekly) #''Ames Sun'', Ames, IA (Weekly) #''Story County Advertiser'', Ames, IA (Weekly) Nevada #''Ely Times'', Ely, NV (Weekly, Fri.) #''Rebel Nation'', Las Vegas, NV (Monthly, 1st of month) #''Eureka Sentinel'', Eureka, NV (twice Weekly, Wed. & Fri.) #'' Lincoln County Record'' (Weekly) North Carolina *''Courier-Tribune'', Asheboro, NC (DAILY) Oklahoma *'' Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise'', Bartlesville, OK (DAILY) #''Pawhuska Journal-Capital'', Pawhuska, OK (twice Weekly, Wed. & Sat.) Texas *''

The Herald Democrat ''The Herald Democrat'' is a daily newspaper located in the twin cities of Sherman and Denison, Texas, in the United States. The ''Herald Democrat'' serves all of Grayson and Fannin County, Texas; parts of Collin, Cooke, Denton, Delta, Lama ...

'', Sherman/Denison TX (DAILY except Saturday) #''Anna-Melissa Tribune'', Anna, TX (Weekly) #''Grayson County Shopper'', Sherman, TX (Weekly) #''Prosper Press'', Prosper, TX (Weekly) #''Van Alstyne Leader'', Van Alstyne, TX (Weekly) #''Lake Texoma Life'', Kingston, TX (Monthly, 1st of month) Tennessee *'' The Daily Herald'', Columbia, TN (DAILY) #'' The Advertiser News'', Spring Hill, TN (Weekly, Wed.) #''The Value Guide'', Columbia, TN (Weekly, Tues.) #''Franklin Life'', Franklin, TN (Monthly, 15th of month) #''Brentwood Life'', Brentwood, TN (Monthly, 1st of month) #''Healthy Living'', Columbia, TN (Monthly, 3rd Wed. each month)

Former news bureaus

Carson City Carson City, officially the Carson City Consolidated Municipality, is an independent city and the capital of the U.S. state of Nevada. As of the 2020 census, the population was 58,639, making it the 6th most populous city in the state. The m ...

Washington, DC Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and Federal district of the United States, federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from ...

Little Rock Little Rock is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Arkansas, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The city's population was 202,591 as of the 2020 census. The six-county Central Arkan ...

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the West South Central region of the Southern United States. It borders Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, Texas to the southwest, and Oklahoma ...

References

{{Authority control Mass media in Nevada Newspaper companies of the United States Companies based in Las Vegas Privately held companies based in the Las Vegas Valley Publishing companies established in 1940 1940 establishments in Arkansas 1993 mergers and acquisitions 2015 mergers and acquisitions