The right-wing billionaire now owns the top source of news in a politically important state—and no one knows what he plans to do with it.
Last Thursday afternoon, the staff of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada’s largest newspaper, was summoned to a meeting with the publisher, Jason Taylor. No topic was specified; employees wondered if the paper’s corporate owners, who had purchased the publication in March, might be getting a new headquarters to replace its dingy, windowless, inner-city warehouse.
Instead, they learned that the paper had again been sold—and the buyer was a secret.
The new owner, News + Media Capital Group, was a mysterious entity that had come out of nowhere. Incorporated in Delaware in September, its only public representative was a Connecticut newspaper publisher named Michael Schroeder, who issued a statement and declined to speak further. Whoever the new owners were, they appeared to have dramatically overpaid. In March, the Review-Journal (“the R-J” to locals) had been sold along with seven other daily newspapers and 65 local weeklies in seven states for $102.5 million. News + Media had paid $140 million for the R-J alone.
Who would pay way too much for a random local broadsheet in a financially troubled industry? It would have to be someone whose goal wasn’t to make money, but to control a major apparatus of the Las Vegas media. Speculation swirled over the weekend, quickly centering around Sheldon Adelson, the shadowy right-wing billionaire who serves as chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands casino empire. The paper’s own reporters publicly decried the lack of transparency, and set to work investigating the matter. (I worked at the R-J for three and a half years, serving as the paper’s Vegas-based political writer from 2006 to 2009.)
Finally, on Wednesday, the mystery was solved. In Thursday’s paper, the Adelson family published a notice saying they had purchased the paper “through a wholly-owned fund, as both a financial investment as well as an investment in the future of the Las Vegas community,” and that it was “always our intention to publicly announce our ownership.”
The prospect of Adelson—the world’s 18th-richest person, who has given tens of millions of dollars to Republican candidates and causes and enjoys access and influence at the highest levels of GOP as a result—owning a major piece of the media has provoked understandable anxiety among local and national political watchers, particularly on the left. Adelson, who gives few interviews, has a history of hostile relations with the local and national press. In one notable case, he sued a beloved R-J columnist, John L. Smith, driving him into bankruptcy at a time when Smith’s young daughter was being treated for brain cancer. Smith kept fighting, and the suit was eventually dismissed. If I were still an R-J reporter, I’d be nervous.
But so far, there are far more questions than answers about how Adelson plans to use his new vehicle.
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Every paper has an owner, and every newspaper owner takes a different approach. Some are proudly hands-off—this seems to be the case for Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, under whose ownership the Washington Post has flourished editorially without seeming to change direction. Some put their mark on the editorial page but leave the newsroom alone; this is largely the case for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and many local newspapers whose owners seek to be prominent figures in their communities. And some seek to turn the publication into a platform for their views from front to back, in subtle or not-so-subtle ways; the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post leaps to mind.
What kind of newspaper owner will Sheldon Adelson be? We are about to find out.
"The right-wing billionaire now owns the top source of news in a politically important state—and no one knows what he plans to do with it."
Here's a clue: September 9, 2015 8:00 a.m. Sheldon Adelson Is Ready to Buy the Presidency By Jason Zengerle
"While Trump boasts that his daughter converted to Judaism and blasts Obama as “the worst enemy of Israel,” his knowledge of the Middle East is sufficiently shallow that Adelson apparently believes Trump wouldn’t be an effective ally of the Jewish state.
But Adelson is also said to be conflicted about the various potential Trump-slayers. "
ZitatMACAU (Reuters) - Top Republican Party donor Sheldon Adelson said on Friday he met presidential candidate Donald Trump earlier this week and that the two American billionaires broached the issue at the heart of Adelson's political agenda: support for Israel.
While the mega donor didn't disclose his degree of backing for the front-runner in the race for the Republican nomination, he did say he found Trump to be "very charming" and called his standing in the crowded candidate field "unheard of."
"It was very nice," the gambling tycoon told Reuters in a rare interview in Macau when asked if he had met Trump, who leads in opinion polls of Republican voters. "He was very charming."
Hours later, Trump returned the compliment to Adelson, telling Reuters, "Sheldon and I have been friends for a long time. He is an amazing man. I am the only one who doesn't need his money. But I would love his support."
On the subject of Israel, Trump added, "Sheldon knows that nobody will be more loyal to Israel than Donald Trump."
The meeting and Trump's pro-Israel stance - coming after more ambiguous remarks a few weeks ago - could pave the way for a deeper relationship between the two men, a month and a half before the first Republican nominating contest in Iowa.
Israel is, by far, the most important issue to Adelson, a fierce supporter of the nation and close friend of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Adelson also owns the newspaper with the largest circulation in Israel, a free daily.
The 82-year-old chief executive of Las Vegas Sands Corp , the world's biggest gambling company by market value, made his comments a few days after hosting the latest debate among Republican Party presidential candidates at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas, where and his Israeli-born wife, Miriam, an accomplished medical doctor and philanthropist, live.
Adelson said much of his discussion with Trump was about Israel.