A long-running dispute between two Las Vegas newspapers has turned into a partisan feud, with billionaire Republican contributor Sheldon Adelson being accused of trying to stifle a liberal voice in Nevada’s largest city.
Brian Greenspun, the owner of the Las Vegas Sun, has sued Adelson in federal court, claiming the controlling shareholder of Las Vegas Sands Corp. and owner of the Las Vegas Review-Journal is trying to put him out of business.
The owner of the Sun said in a court filing Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Nevada that Adelson is reneging on the terms of a 30-year-old joint operating agreement under which the two publications shared a printing press and expenses.
In the past two years, Adelson has halted profit-sharing payments to Greenspun, eliminated joint promotions and has tried to hide the Sun’s content, including political endorsements, according to the complaint.
Greenspun has fought a long legal battle to keep the nearly 70-year-old Sun afloat, including fights with past owners of the Review-Journal. Under the joint operating agreement, the Sun was reduced to an insert in the Review-Journal. Each newspaper has its own editorial staff.
Benjamin Lipman, the Review-Journal’s vice president of legal affairs and general counsel, said Greenspun’s complaints are old and without merit, adding Adelson intends to fight.
“The one common denominator is Brian Greenspun,” Lipman said. “This time around he makes it sound like the problems were created by the new ownership.”
The lawsuit pits two prominent Nevadans against each other at a time when the state’s demographics are shifting and the population is growing.
“Clark County is going to a bluish county,” Greenspun said in an interview. “Sheldon is a bright red person, and he wants his voice to be the only voice.”
Adelson, a cab driver’s son from Boston, built Las Vegas Sands into the world’s largest casino company by shrewdly betting on conventions in Las Vegas and growing demand for gambling in Asia. He is often ranked among the largest Republican donors in the country, and has been a big supporter of President Donald Trump. He acquired the Review-Journal for $140 million in 2015.
The Greenspun family’s wealth dates back to Hank Greenspun, a former publicist for Bugsy Siegel’s Flamingo casino who started publishing the Sun in 1950. After the elder Greenspun’s death in 1989, his family formed the joint operating agreement with the rival paper to save the failing Sun.
Joint operating agreements have been used for decades as a way of preserving local journalism by having two papers share business operations but retain editorial independence.
Greenspun’s son Brian has been editor of the Sun since 1989 and is the city’s longest-running metro columnist, according to the suit. His disputes with the Review-Journal predate Adelson’s ownership.
In the interview, Greenspun said the Sun’s problems escalated after Adelson bought the Review-Journal and redesigned its front page to hide the Sun’s contributions. Greenspun said a court-ordered arbitrator this year confirmed that the Review-Journal had been improperly counting expenses and granted him a right to an audit.
In a counterclaim last month in state court, the Review-Journal accused the Sun of publishing “substandard and often stale content” in its print edition and hoarding the best stories for its website, which operates separately. Adelson’s newspaper also said the joint operating agreement is a legacy of another era, when the Review-Journal’s advertising was much greater.
Newspapers operating under such agreements have been struggling everywhere, according to Alan Stavitsky, dean of the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno, which is named after a former owner of the Review-Journal.
“I’m all for many voices in the marketplace – certainly the Sun is a voice worth saving,” Stavitsky said. “But there’s not a lot of independent journalism, local accountability being published in the Sun. This is more about business than attempting to silence a liberal voice.” Christopher Palmeri, Bloomberg
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