In Defense Of The R-J

I've been receiving a number of texts and emails from VegasHappensHere.Com readers and friends simply floored that the Review-Journal featured me so prominently in Corey Levitan's piece today about the Vegas blogosphere.

I am not blowing smoke when I say that I am completely unsurprised. No, really.

Yes, I have provided in this space some intense criticism of the R-J and its publisher, Sherm Frederick. Yes, I still think most of Sherm's columns are ridiculous and that his spending priorities do a disservice to his product. But I also preach that there's excellent work done there and that the sins of publishers and editors should never be blamed on the many terrific reporters working in this town.

And as brutal as I have been about Sherm -- and he has returned the love in kind on his blog -- I would never imagine that he would tell one of his reporters not to include a newsworthy element of a story simply because he's got a personal or ideological bone to pick. Contrary to the conspiracy theories out there about how news operations are run, it's always been my experience that publishers and even top editors meddle in the content very, very sparingly. I worked for three years in the 1990s at the R-J, a right-leaning paper on its editorial pages, and I write regularly for The New York Times, the epitome of what some view as the "liberal media elite." On no side have I ever been instructed as to how to slant or frame a story beyond the normal reporter-editor discussions fleshing out what we see as the news. In those conversations, though, throughout my career in daily journalism, editors defer to the judgment of reporters almost all of the time. (Magazine journalism is a bit of a different matter.)

So I'm quite thrilled to have received the coverage today from Corey's story. And I loved, loved, loved that he managed to include the libel lawsuit vexing that moron blogger Michael Politz. But I'm not surprised that Sherm behaved professionally. In fact, I suspect he probably didn't know the story was being done. It's not his job to micromanage that way.

Oh, and while I'm tooting the worn-out horn, UNLV journalism student Laura Davis wrote a extremely flattering profile of me appearing in the current issue of Q Vegas (free registration req.). So it's been quite a nice Sunday.