Where I Stand — Brian Greenspun: A Business venture

Thursday, June 1, 2000 | 9:50 a.m.

Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.

It is nice to be in business in Las Vegas.

I said it once, and now I'll say it again. It is nice to be In Business Las Vegas. If you noticed a slight difference in the way the words came out you have hit upon one of the most significant additions to the Las Vegas business scene in decades. I am talking about a brand new weekly newspaper that hits the stands tomorrow and every Friday thereafter. While it is about business -- that's what the publisher of the newspaper will tell you -- it is about far more than that. And I ought to know.

That's because In Business Las Vegas, we'll call it In Business for short, is the latest venture of the Greenspun Media Group. That's a company whose name carries an eerie resemblance to the name at the top of this column. And what this has been is a not-so-clever way of telling our readers of a bias I have for the subject about which I am writing today. We are supposed to do that, you know, tell readers of our biases, so they can decipher the truth amidst all of the puffery that we may use to describe a project with which we have more than a passing interest. And while I have never fully bought into that concept, I am more than willing to comply because I know that when I write about something like In Business I don't have to embellish. The product will speak loudly enough for itself.

What I'd like to share with potential readers, though, is not so much the kind and quality of In Business -- they can see that for themselves when they pick up a copy on Friday or, please, please, subscribe to the newspaper by the year. They can then make up their own minds whether this is a newspaper that fills a need, whether they are in business in Las Vegas or interested in joining those folks who have discovered the best place in the country in which to do business. No, what I'd like to visit for a few minutes is the thrill I have in watching the birth of a new product. It isn't anything close, I am sure, to the birth of a grandchild, but in our family the creation of a new editorial product that will serve this community well is something to get excited about.

We are about to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Las Vegas Sun next month. In this day and age, the ability for any business to last that long is something for the record books. The fact that this newspaper has been able to buck the trend of a century full of dead newspapers is not only a source of pride for my family but a source of strength for this community, because we have been able to provide a strong and vibrant voice for progressivity for a city that is in constant need of it.

For almost 35 years we had only the Sun. Since then we have launched Showbiz Magazine, the city's most successful tourist publication; Las Vegas Weekly, an alternative newspaper dedicated to the arts, culture and music, as well as a lifestyle for generation Xers that makes me think about being young again; Vegas Golfer, a magazine after my own heart and certainly my passion that will be around to share in and lead the explosion of golf in this valley; and Las Vegas Life, the resurrection of the name that started my father's publishing ventures and a city magazine dedicated to the best of Las Vegas and Las Vegans' lifestyles.

Throw in an ownership interest in Cox Communications of Las Vegas, the cable and communications company my parents started four decades ago; Nextlink Nevada, the leading competitive access telephone company in the state; Las Vegas One, Las Vegas' own 24-hour cable news channel that is a partnership with Cox and KLAS Channel 8; and Vegas.com, soon to be the No. 1 Internet site all about Las Vegas and all for the people who come here to play in the sun; and you see a very clear picture of a whole lot of people trying to improve the communications channels for Las Vegans who are looking for ways to improve their own lives and opportunities.

And now the latest entry, In Business Las Vegas, which represents many months of hard work and careful planning by people like my brother, Danny, who is president of the Media Group, Bruce Spottleson, general manager of the Media Group's newspaper division, and Carolyn Ashford, the publisher of In Business. They, together with reporters, editors, production and circulation people and the all important advertising sales folks, have brought to this community a business paper that they claim will fill a much-needed niche in the business community. I say it will do a lot more.

There used to be heavy, well-defined lines drawn between the business and consumer communities in this country. What was good for business was automatically bad for the people and vice-versa. Well, that just isn't the case anymore. There is much in the business world that is good for consumers, workers and government employees. Just like there is much in those constituencies that can be good for people looking to grow their businesses. What In Business Las Vegas will do is not only help, if I can use an Internet term, in the business-to-business space but also in the all important business-to-consumer and consumer-to-business arena. Information is a good thing, and the more people armed with it the better the decisions will be made for all concerned.

So even though Carolyn Ashford will say that business people must read In Business regularly, which is the truth, I believe that even those who aren't in business for themselves -- consumers, taxpayers and government employees -- will benefit from reading all about what is happening to the job-creation engine that fuels the incredible growth in our valley.

In that regard, what my family has just created will be good for the people of Southern Nevada. And that's what got us here in the first place. By doing good, good things happen.

In Business Las Vegas is good. Welcome to the family.