Media Muddle: Gross Pools, Due Credit & Stupid Questions

A few bits and pieces of stuff that caught my eye lately in the Vegas-related media:

* Nothing makes me happier than when a local freelance writer breaks a good, enterprising story out from under the established press, and that's what Melissa Arseniuk did on Sunday in The Daily with her probe of the cleanliness of the pool water at several Vegas "day club" venues. It's thoroughly disgusting but also a pretty great idea and one that it's fairly unlikely either major media company -- or Arseniuk's former employer Vegas Seven for that matter -- would do as it would put at risk one of the few steady advertising revenue streams that have held up through the recession. Nicely done, although did she have to invoke the most predictable of Vegas cliches in her lead? You have that awesome a story idea, it deserves equally original writing.

* Anyone who cares about Vegas and Vegas business matters ought to be subscribed and listening to the Vegas Gang podcast to begin with. But if you need convincing, pick up their superb and frank interview with M Resort developer Anthony Marnell III.

* On that same VG episode, former In Business Las Vegas editor Jeff Simpson noted the meager Vegas media response to the passing of Terry Lanni and used it as a mark of why it's so important for people who care about Vegas -- and cover it -- to pay attention to what's going on on blogs such as Two Way Hard Three and VegasTripping. (I'd add in Stiffs & Georges, too, as required visiting.) Of course, I agree, but Jeff left out one more important piece of it: The established media also must start to acknowledge when online publications break news. Norm Clarke of the R-J is the only one who does so consistently. It was VegasTripping.Com that broke the Aria Legionnaires' disease story, but for whatever reason Jon Ralston would rather give the scoop credit to his hated rival the Review-Journal (?!?!?) than the correct outlet. Lookit:

That's at least two errors in two sentences for Ralston, who loves to mock the R-J for its mistakes but won't ever correct these. First, VT had this up at 8:50 a.m. and the R-J had this up at 9:46 a.m., so VT wins. Oddly, Ralston should have known because he linked to the VT posting. But, also, VT's Chuck Monster is not a local. The blog is based in California. Oopsie.

* Speaking of David McKee, he now has my blessing to be upset with Brian Greenspun for not memorializing Terry Lanni in his Sunday column. In fact, neither newspaper even bothered to write an editorial about Lanni and Vegas Inc just reran Liz Benston's first-day obit. A shameful, disrespectful goodbye for a monumental figure. I was glad to see Howard Stutz follow up with a report about Lanni's memorial service in Southern California, but why wasn't that in the newspaper, too?

* A few things I learned from other journalists this week:

• In Nevada, 75 percent of families choose to donate organs when loved ones who never indicated a preference are in life-ending condition.
• The Nevada desert is used to approximate Mars' surface.
• China had this awesome-looking fake Apple store for a few minutes.
  
• Free public wi-fi can be dangerous for the businesses that furnish it, too
• Laura Myers is a gifted writer as well as a nice lady, and here's the proof
• Far-right R-J columnist Glenn Cook can be human and funny, too.

* In journalism school, you learn never to open a story with a question. I'm OK with opening with questions -- I never do it, but I don't always hate it -- but I do think there ought to be a rule that you never open a story with a dumb question. You know, like when J. Patrick Coolican of the Las Vegas Sun writes:

Throw this onto the ever-growing pile of the baffling: Why is there no discussion about blight on the Strip? Why is there no sense of concern — and with it, fresh ideas — about the long stretches of our most important economic and cultural asset that are pocked with half-finished projects or just empty land?

Is he kidding? Maybe this goes back to Simpson's point about Vegas journalists needing to pay attention to what's going on online. "No discussion?" There's discussion constantly on the Vegas-related podcasts, at least, including Vegas Gang and The Strip. There was discussion of it in the MSM, too, when Steve Wynn paid to put up trees in front of the stalled Echelon to improve the view a little, when Sheldon Adelson put a wrap on the stalled St. Regis condos and Caesars Entertainment finished the exterior of the stalled Octavius Tower and when MGM Resorts finished the exterior of the vexed Harmon and when the Stratosphere CEO told me for my LVW column that what I dubbed as Decay Alley at the north end of the Strip post-Sahara would be rough on them.

Which is to say, there's been discussion. No, Patrick, you're not the first to notice this. You may have an interesting idea for what to do up there, although I've never heard the many tourists I hear from regularly suggest what Vegas is missing is an outdoor market where they can buy crafts and crap in 105-degree heat. But when you open like that, you show how little you pay attention to the discourse going on all around you.

* Norm Clarke is a maestro at finding the Vegas angle of just about any celebrity death, and there seem to be an awful lot of 'em. So here's what he came up with regarding Amy Winehouse. Amazing, really.

* In case you missed it, I raved about Andrew Kiraly's novel Crit on The Strip last week. It was our Top Secret Tourist Tip of the Week for July 20, too. I read it in about four hours and I'm a slow reader. Buy it.

Another Pulitzer Nod Coming For Las Vegas Sun?

Two years ago, most of Las Vegas was caught completely off guard when our little Las Vegas Sun snagged a Pulitzer Prize for public service for Ali Berzon's coverage of a rash of construction deaths at CityCenter. We weren't paying attention because the idea of a Vegas paper earning such an accolade was sort of hard to fathom. If anything, I would've expected the Sun's awesome cartoonist Mike Smith to win before anyone else. I also had thought that if Sen. John Ensign had resigned, Jon Ralston might stand a shot at a nod as a columnist.

Well, I'm not going to get caught behind the curve this go-around. For the past couple years, the Sun's crack medical writer Marshall Allen has been digging and digging and digging into all sorts of scandal involving medical errors, hospital reporting practices and the like in the Do No Harm series. Marshall, like Berzon before him, is the main journalist here but as this credits box shows, it takes a lot of people to do such important and complicated work.


Well, just like the Oscars have the SAG Awards and the Golden Globes, there are journalism equivalents and one is the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy's finalists for the 2011 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, announced Friday. So look at that, Allen and co-writer Alex Richards are among the six for that. They're up against the LA Times for its investigation of corruption in Bell, Calif.,; NPR for an expose on the nation's bail bondsman industry; ProPublica and NPR (including Ira Glass) for coverage of the economy, the Washington Post for a look at the expansion of government since 9/11; and the San Jose Mercury-News on the influence of lobbyists in Sacramento.

The nomination all but ensures that the Sun is looking at another Pulitzer contender and, frankly, just looking at the topics in contention I have to believe the odds are very good.

The Goldsmith award will be handed out at Harvard University on March 7. The winner gets $25,000. The Pulitzers are awarded in mid-April. Good luck!

Vdara Death Ray in CHINESE anime!

[Update: Oops. It's not Japanese, it's Chinese. Wasn't paying attention. Shame. Now stop writing to correct me. -sf]

OK, it's been a pretty heady week for lil ole Vdara and its DEATH RAY. And now this:

Something tells me the geniuses who make these funny vids aren't planning to cover, uh, the Reid-Angle race any time soon. Although I'd give a lot to see Sharron Angle animated as she allegedly hates on the autistic or whatever and Harry Reid telling Kirsten Gillibrand she's so hot in Japanese. It is ripe, but I suspect Christine O'D0nnell's witching past might be even better.

Meanwhile, also in DEATH RAY news, as I predicted, "Wait Wait Don't Tell Me" used the item on this week's show. Hat tip to Dave Lifton for pointing it out first, and you can hear just that six-minute segment by right-clicking here. Funny stuff, although the joke's been told so many times this week it actually feels stale. Had Mo Rocca been on the show this week, he might have pulled off a line like this classic from the Twitter feed of @Misadventurer:


I love how some competitors are taking advantage:


Oh, and right after I wondered on this blog (a) why the R-J hadn't followed up on their own scoop, (b) why the Sun hadn't done anything at all and (c) why nobody else locally had written anything on the absurd amount of press coverage devoted to this, the R-J and the Sun both chimed in with...pieces on the absurd amount of press coverage devoted to this. Of course, neither of them referenced the AOL News piece that was the first national follow-up and which actually advanced the story beyond Joan Whitely's original, but that's to be expected from the insecure souls who run our version of the MSM.

That's OK. We sorta got the Sun back over at AOL with this possibly misleading headline:

Following up on The Sun's Firings

I'm not going to belabor the Greenspun Media Group firings much longer except to note that, for those who haven't looked, the count on the list I'm compiling is now 37. I appeared with Dave Berns on "State of Nevada" on KNPR last week to mull the thing and it dawned on me during that chat that the Greenspun family hadn't invested heavily in just one industry now in dire straits -- media -- but in at least two others, casinos (via now-bankrupt Station Casinos) and real estate. Yikes, huh?

Also, Jon Ralston, the most prominent and significant brand associated with Greenspun Media Group, finally wrote some thoughts on the carnage four days -- and an email from me baffling over why he hadn't said anything -- later. Knowing that Ralston would be instantly all over Review-Journal publisher Sherm Frederick if Sherm had fired three dozen people and then wrote a column pretending that this "consolidation" would produce a better product and waxing on about "hope," what Jon did write was intriguing and worth sharing.

This was at the bottom of the Friday edition of his daily e-mail newsletter, the Ralston Flash:

Dear Flashees,

I have been tardy in not commenting on the layoffs at Greenspun Media this week. I am almost glad I let a blizzard of events in my own extreme-entropy-filled life get in the way because I have been able to soak in the various takes, most of them uninformed, from the outside.

Amid all the handwringing are two realities: The company’s financial constriction and the brutally sad loss of 40 jobs.

I have no clue of the parent company’s balance sheet but I am sure it is no different than most of the major companies in Southern Nevada – that is, hurting. So I am sure the Greenspuns felt they had to do something to stanch the bleeding, no matter how painful, just as gaming goliaths and development behemoths have. But it just feels different to people in the business when this happens to others in the business, especially those of us still with jobs. We feel guilt mixed with sympathy and overall, a sense of loss, both tangible and intangible.

There were some great, talented people let go this week and I hope they find jobs, even though employment in journalism is more and more dicey. These are dark days for those of us who prize the profession, as we have seen newspapers and TV stations cut and gut their staffs, and I wonder if the quality can be maintained.

I have seen and heard criticism of how this was handled at Greenpsun Central. [sic] So be it. But is there a good way to handle such a cataclysm? I don’t think anything could have softened the blow for those laid off this week. As for the observation that this is the dismantling of an organization that just won a Pulitzer, that the Sun grabbed the prize and then disbanded the team, let’s wait awhile. A new business and journalism model is in its nascent stages, so let’s see how it plays out. I’m hopeful that this is not, as some ominously foretell, the beginning of the end, but rather a new beginning.

One more valedictory: I wanted to say a word of thanks and well wishes to Mike Kelley, the Sun managing editor who presided over that Pulitzer and is now leaving the organization to spend more time with his grandchildren. Kelley arguably created something even greater and more monstrous than a Pulitzer, something called “Face to Face with Jon Ralston.” It was his vision that gave me the chance to do what has become the most enjoyable part of my journalistic career. For that, I shall be eternally grateful. He is a real newsman and I wish him all the best.

I'll ignore all the "those dastardly outsiders don't know the real story" crap because it's what some people say about many of Jon's commentaries, too, so I know he doesn't mean it. And I'll say that it's too bad Jon didn't pay homage to his own dismissed editor, Pat Teague, since Pat probably would've prevented Jon from misspelling the name of his own employer.

Nah, I'll move right on to the part where Jon asks: "But is there a good way to handle such a cataclysm?"

In fact, there is! I read a very interesting piece about this very topic recently! The headline was "Workplace transparency helps ease pain of employee layoffs." The piece opens with these four words: "Talk to us. Please." The idea is that layoffs are a little less stinging when both those who leave and those who remain have a clue what the circumstance of the company is. Also -- and this isn't in that story but kinda is a teaspoon of common sense -- it does nobody favors to have their former boss try to cast their unemployment as a cause for anyone to feel affirmed or upbeat. And I can't tell you the number of emails I've received from the fired thanking me to keeping that list. Being acknowledged for your service, it seems, also makes the pain a little more palatable.

Oh, that story I just referenced? Ahh, right. It was in IN Business Las Vegas. It was probably edited by Jeff Simpson, now the former editor of the GMG publication which also carries a weekly column by Jon Ralston.

It ran on Nov. 27. Four days before the Sun's Black Tuesday.

Busy Day Ahead...

Gotta dash off to KNPR now to join Dave Berns on State of Nevada from 9:40a-10a PT for chatter about Steve Wynn, CityCenter, Las Vegas Sun layoffs and, so I hear, what the Tiger Woods drama could mean for Vegas clubs. (I know, I know. I go where the host wants me to. Friesster = Media Whore.)

Then I need to finish an overdue Sphere.Com piece on, yes, CityCenter, before the Crystals media open house from noon-5. Plus, gotta rent me a tux for the Mandarin Oriental opening on Friday night -- this is Vegas, quickie tux rental should be easy, yes? -- and I've got a LVW column idea that'll also take a little legwork.

So I probably won't be able to blog much today, but I've been very efficient at approving comments, which is easier to do via iPhone than anything else on Blogger, and there've been loads of them so browse the site. And keep 'em coming.

And, also, please take a look at my largest and most significant CityCenter piece, the cover of L.A. Weekly. It's a 4,000-word examination of the premises of the project and raises some issues I have yet to see anyone discuss in this rah-rah period. The piece was edited by Drex Heikes, the editor who drove Ali Berzon's Pulitzer-winning package on CityCenter construction deaths at the Sun. He got out of dodge before the carnage, much to my benefit.

Black Tuesday For Greenspun Media

UPDATE: A list of 18 people who lost their jobs and what they did is now available in the latest post. More will be added there as I learn them. -sf

I don't know all the details yet, but when I learn from sources today that some of my favorite Vegas writers -- Richard Abowitz, Jeff German, Abigail Goldman, Jeff Simpson (right) and Melissa Arsenuik -- have lost their jobs, I shudder for Las Vegas journalism.

It's not even that Greenspun Media -- owners of Las Vegas Sun, In Business Las Vegas, Las Vegas Weekly, Vegas Magazine, Vegas.Com and other entities -- fired as many as 25 employees that gets me, though. That's depressing but many of the company's publications have been money-losers and civic duties for the Greenspun family for a long, long time. It's probably been many decades since the Sun has made a dime in profit. If ever.

These are good people, really, and their investment in media over the years has never paid them a profit in any way other than helping to keep the public informed and entertained. The family money comes from many other sources -- real estate, largely, as developers of Green Valley -- and many millions have disappeared into these publications and efforts.

So if the hemorhaging became unmanageable, it's tragic and a sign of the times. Nobody, not even a billionaire, owes anybody a job when the money is vanishing at the rate I suspect it has been for some time.

But.

With all due respect to the Greenspuns, whom I work for as a columnist for the Las Vegas Weekly, whoever crafted this thing announcing the changes within their media conglomerate has done a tremendous disservice to the many people whose hundreds of years of collective service to the company just ended. Here's how it starts:

Local media divisions of The Greenspun Media Group today announced that they will reorganize and move into a single location, with the goal of fully integrating print and interactive operations.

These steps are intended to position the company to better meet the Las Vegas area's rapidly evolving informational and marketing needs and create a sustainable business model for the future, said Brian Greenspun, chairman of The Greenspun Corporation and editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

“Today's move reflects our commitment to traditional media and our increasing commitment to the potential of the digital age,” Greenspun said.

So far, so good, right? They're changing with the times, consolidating, improving efficiencies, blah blah blah. Neat-o! It's not until the eighth paragraph that we get to this:

As part of the reorganization and due to the continued economic climate, Greenspun announced that a reduction of workforce was necessary. Affected employees were to be notified today.

“We truly regret the loss of jobs in our family and in our community,” said Greenspun. “We are grateful to these fine people for the contributions they have made over the years. But we must face up to both the challenges and the opportunities of the world we’re living in. We feel it’s time to unite our media into a more progressive and audience-driven model.”

Uh, wow. What were the first 50 years or so of GMG if not "audience-driven"?

But more significantly, you're laying off a large group -- unspecified for unspecific reasons, which is weird, too -- of people. Again, that's your prerogative and understandable if brutal in this environment and given the time of year, but at least do them the dignity of not depersonalizing. Don't bury this grave human cost so far into the press release that it's presented as an afterthought. Don't act as though this is all for the best, that the product you're producing will be better for it and not reduced and less substantial.

We expect this sort of spin from normal corporations and politicians. How refreshing would it have been to get something from a MEDIA company that looks like this:

Bowing to the pressures of a miserable economy that has led to record losses, Greenspun Media Group today laid off X number of journalists in a tragic but necessary act to shore up the company's books. Among those who will be leaving the company are [NAME SOME BIG NAMES, THEIR HISTORIES, ETC.] "We had hoped it wouldn't come to this and we are heartbroken that so many of our colleagues now must face the worst unemployment scene for Nevadans or for journalists in generations," said...

See? Then go ahead and do the shiny-happy about how these changes will impact the product, integrate, whatever. But what they put out today was obvious face-saving fluff -- and who do they think they're kidding? You fired dozens of people. Own that.

What's even odder yet is that while the news release doesn't give specific names or numbers, neither does the Associated Press news story that is appearing on LasVegasSun.Com! They need to use wire copy about their own fiscal drama? I mean, the fact that Jeff German, a columnist at the Las Vegas Sun for many decades, is no longer in the paper is shocking. That would be news all by itself.

I write all this knowing full well I may offend the powers that allow me the joy -- and I mean that seriously -- of my Las Vegas Weekly column. I hope not. But I have been fired before and I feel a great kinship for the folks who have lost their jobs, a kinship that Hank Greenspun certainly would have understood and appreciated. And they could have been treated better publicly.

Breaking: Lupone Dresses Down Texting Audience Member in Vegas

She did it again!!!

Patti LuPone, the two-time Tony winner who exploded on stage on Broadway earlier this year when someone in the audience took a photo during "Gypsy," halted her one-woman performance in Vegas tonight to stop an audience member from texting right when she was winding up to sing her showstopper "Don't Cry For Me Argentina."

As LuPone was about to begin the song she made into a classic as the original Eva Peron in "Evita," she stopped and ask the man to stop what he was doing. She kept her cool and even told him, "I'm not going to yell at you, I don't think." Then she proceeded to kindly berate him -- she was sweet but terse -- and say she was on "a campaign" because such behavior is distracting and insulting to performers.

"The thing is, the people who text, they don't seem to understand that we can see you," she said. "If you really need to do that, why don't you just leave?"

With that, several audience members stood up and cheered her. There are clear signs outside the showroom warning against phone or camera use and an announcement before the show started.

"It's only the minority of people who do this," she said. "And the thing is, it's the light of it. The other people around you have got to be pissed off, too."

Yours truly suddenly had this overwhelming urge to text but managed to contain myself, all the while wondering how I could get out early to get my car out of valet before the rest of the crowd so I could write this post. I did Tweet some of this when waiting for my car, though @TheStripPodcast.

I'm glad I didn't leave too soon, though, because she came out for her encore with a disposable camera and took photos of the crowd and the band, an obvious homage to her freak-out on stage in "Gypsy" in January when she angrily bawled out someone at the performance taking photos. It turned out that the person was actually a credentialed photojournalist. (Since I totally spaced it on this one when I interviewed Patti for "The Strip" podcast last week, read Joe Brown's profile of Patti from the Sun for more from her on the New York incident.)

One last thing: LuPone did two nights at the Orleans. She did not berate anyone during Saturday's show, so it does not appear to have been a "bit."

To hear what happened in New York in January, watch this:



This time is different, of course, because it was a solo concert. In New York, she had to break character and halt the narrative to speak to the audience.

P.S. The Orleans show was AWESOME. But that's almost besides the point now, isn't it?

[UPDATE: My colleague, Las Vegas Sun entertainment scribe Joe Brown, posted this version. He had the advantage of being able to hear better; I could only hear her once she got going on the poor texting schlub. So for the complete tale, also read the LasVegasSun.Com post by clicking here.]

Obama: The Las Vegas Spectacular

Back when Celine Dion was (temporarily) vacating the Colosseum, many of us did partook in this really fun parlor game about what acts could handle to fill the 4,000-room prestige venue night after night. Bette and Cher are the current residents and they do just groovy. Oprah did some shows there with Cher and Tina Turner, giving rise to speculation about Tina but nothing's come of that.

Turns out, we were thinking of the wrong Big O.

As in, Obama.

No, really. See what Jon Ralston of the Las Vegas Sun just posted. That's one of the invites for the Harry Reid fundraiser headlined by the President. Ralston's blog has links to two other versions.

Bette Midler and Sheryl Crow. Sounds like a great show. Maybe they'll sell a soundtrack for those of us whose jobs disallow us to give money to political candidates! I wonder if Rep. Shelley Berkley will hang out by the stage door in hopes of putting her sis on the line with POTUS!