Columnist Jon Ralston: New home, same view, more options

Sunday, Jan. 16, 2000 | 2:35 a.m.

Jon Ralston, who publishes The Ralston Report, writes a column for the Sun on Wednesdays and Sundays. Ralston can be reached at 870-7997 or at ralston@lvcm.com.

So this is what it feels like to flip-flop?

I'm suddenly feeling a wave of sympathy for all those politicians I've excoriated for taking a position and then changing it, for ranting on one side of an issue and then voting the other way.

Frankly, this is the kind of thing I would relish writing about -- and probably with very little sympathy -- if it happened to a politician: Guy is associated with the same outfit for 15 years, developing at first reflexive contempt then gradually imbued disdain for the competition.

Then, out of the blue, in a move only slightly less significant in the media world than the AOL-Time-Warner merger, he signs on with the enemy. A fifth columnist in the Fourth Estate? Is there a conspiracy that needs to be unraveled? Or, more simply put: Why?

That's the natural question after I left behind a lengthy association with the Las Vegas Review-Journal about a month ago and agreed to work for the Greenspun Media Group and the Las Vegas Sun. As I begin my new life this week, I can't act like Emily Litella; whining "nevermind" to erase the past just won't cut it.

And I don't want to erase the past. I feel tremendous warmth toward the R-J and many of the people who work there. In my eight years as an employee and the past seven as a freelancer, I learned a lot and made wonderful friends. When I announced my departure, virtually everyone there, including my longtime boss, Sherm Frederick, wished me well. But that now is the past, and, ahem, the Sun is rising on a bright future.

The GMG, through the Sun, through a TV station and through cyberspace, is willing to boldly go where no local media company has gone before. In fact, the only difference between my previous incarnation and the newly metamorphosed me is that there will be more of me.

In addition to writing twice a week for the Sun -- on Sundays and Wednesdays -- I will continue to publish The Ralston Report, a biweekly newsletter of news and analysis that I started in 1993 after leaving the R-J as a full-time employee. I also will head up a new, daily e-mail newsletter that will contain up-to-the-minute insider information about politics, business and more.

And then there is the TV component -- I still will make regular appearances on KLAS-TV Channel 8, but I also will become a frequent contributor to Las Vegas 1, including the development of a new public affairs show that we hope will become must-see fare for the community. There are other projects in the works, too, including at least one new publication I will contribute to. All in all, it is a multimedia venture that no one else in town could have offered.

Oh, yes, some will wonder, didn't you do this for the money? Well, yes, partly. Oh the horror! I built a valuable product -- The Ralston Report -- and then sold it. And I hope I also developed a less tangible commodity -- a reputation for credibility and integrity -- that helped attract a suitor. Hello, capitalism.

Actually, the hardest part of this transaction was not fiddling with the financial details but putting aside a history of enmity between the two newspapers. It was, however, an animus that, while deeply felt and often expressed, was for me rarely personal. For years I have known people who worked for the Sun and consider some friends. Once I was able to put all of that in the proper perspective and bury the past, I was able to sign on the dotted line.

The only thing that won't change in this cataclysm is what you will get from me. As always, I will delight in harnessing my source network and analytical abilities to detail how politics really works in this state, taking a sardonic and occasionally acerbic look at every level of government from Clark County to Carson City to Capitol Hill. No cows will be considered sacred, no topic off-limits.

And that's one position that will never change.