LVRJ Reporters Assignment Under Adelson Ownership: Monitor Judges
Reporters of the Las Vegas Review Journal were told to monitor three area judges, one of whom is overseeing a case involving casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson. This weekend it was revealed that Adelson is the new owner of the LVRJ.
From the New York Times:
The assignment was handed down by corporate management over the objections of the newsroom, the paper reported.
No reason was specified for the assignment, the paper’s editor, Michael Hengel, said in an interview on Friday, and the material, which the paper said amounted to 15,000 words, was never published.
“They insisted that we do it even though we didn’t see the purpose of doing so,” Mr. Hengel said, referring to the paper’s corporate management.
One of the judges the reporters were told to monitor, Elizabeth Gonzalez, is handling a wrongful dismissal lawsuit filed in 2010 against Mr. Adelson and his casino company by Steven Jacobs, the former chief executive of its operations in Macau.
Mr. Adelson and his family paid $140 million for the newspaper last week, several times that paper’s value.
Adelson already owns a newspaper in Israel. He is among the biggest GOP donors.
The casino billionaire was slow to announce his connection with the purchase. The only disclosed partner named in the sale was Michael E. Schroeder.
The Times also made this unusual observation related to Schroeder:
In another twist, The Review-Journal reported that The New Britain Herald, a Connecticut paper controlled by Mr. Schroeder, had run an article less than three weeks ago that had singled out Judge Gonzalez for criticism. Its author was Edward Clarkin, who had previously submitted reviews of local restaurants. Reached by phone on Friday, Mr. Schroeder declined to comment on the matter, but said that journalists in Las Vegas were merely stirring up trouble.
- Gilbert Horowitz, Gambling911.com
