Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Sun deal with R-J ‘a tremendous opportunity’

The Las Vegas Sun this fall will enter a new chapter in its storied history when it will return to morning delivery on a daily basis as an independently produced newspaper within the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Sun President and Editor Brian Greenspun and Sherman Frederick, chief executive officer of Review-Journal publisher Stephens Media Group, announced Tuesday that the change will occur on or before Sept. 30.

"We think it's a tremendous opportunity for us," Greenspun told the Sun editorial staff.

"The definition of a good business deal is when both sides walk away thinking they got what they wanted and that it was a fair deal for both sides. That's what happened here. The Review-Journal is on our side. They want us to be successful."

Frederick said he, too, was pleased with the arrangement, which was the result of about a year of negotiations, which were finalized on Friday.

"It's a fair deal for everybody, including our readers and our advertisers," Frederick said.

Chances are the Sun will concentrate more on in-depth, analytical, enterprise and investigative journalism since much of the daily news -- such as meetings and press conferences, fires and accidents -- will be covered by the Review-Journal, Greenspun said.

"If we do our job right, we will be the most compelling read in the morning," he said. "Right now very few people know about the Las Vegas Sun."

Frederick said the inclusion of the Sun in the morning edition will force the Review-Journal editorial staff to work harder.

"It makes us more competitive, not less," he said. "It will push my guys. No one can say that we got beat on a story but because it was in the Sun no one will read it. Now, everyone will read it."

The two newspapers have operated under a Joint Operating Agreement that began in 1990 and runs through 2040. Under the agreement, which was forged under the federal Newspaper Preservation Act enacted in 1970, the Las Vegas papers share printing, advertising and circulation operations but maintain separate news-gathering staffs.

That would not change under the new arrangement, though an amendment to the Joint Operating Agreement will have to be filed with the U.S. Justice Department. That filing could occur as early as today, Frederick said.

"The whole purpose of the Joint Operating Agreement is to provide two voices for the Las Vegas community," he said. "Under the old arrangement you have an afternoon newspaper and a morning newspaper but despite our best efforts we were having problems getting readers in the afternoon."

What would change is that the Sun's afternoon delivery would cease to exist on the date the morning publication cycle begins. Greenspun said the Sun has vastly improved as a newspaper since 1990 but that it struggled to maintain its afternoon circulation.

The only way to keep the Sun viable, he said, "is to become a morning paper, which is what we used to be."

Greenspun informed the Sun staff at a meeting in the newsroom that the move will be positive for the newspaper because its inclusion as the third section in the Review-Journal would boost the Sun's circulation six-fold.

The Las Vegas Sun name will appear at the top of the front page of the Review-Journal. The two newspapers will participate in joint advertising and circulation promotions.

The Review-Journal's daily circulation now stands at 165,000, with 225,000 readers on Saturday and 240,000 readers on Sunday. As an afternoon paper, the Sun currently has a circulation Monday through Friday of about 28,000, with insert pages on Saturday and Sunday in the Review-Journal.

"This is the best way to go from a circulation of 28,000 to 170,000 overnight," Greenspun said. "This paper is going to be so good that it will increase the circulation of the Review-Journal."

Frederick said he is confident that the Sun's afternoon circulation will instantaneously transfer to the morning newspaper, boosting it immediately by roughly 28,000. Frederick said the Review-Journal believes its Sunday circulation could reach 300,000 within two years.

All current Sun subscriptions will be honored until they expire, and the price of the Review-Journal -- now 50 cents Monday through Saturday and $2.50 on Sunday -- will not be increased. The schedule of morning home delivery also will not be affected once the Sun section begins morning publication.

The Sun will have eight news pages Monday through Friday, six on Saturday and 10 on Sunday, excluding advertisements. That means the Sun will have fewer pages than it now has on Monday through Friday but more pages on Saturday and Sunday.

The move from afternoon to morning publication will come at a cost for the 77-member Sun editorial staff. Greenspun said it is inevitable that some workers will be laid off, though he said every effort will be made to place those employees with other publications produced by Greenspun Media Group or with other employers.

"We're going to help people find jobs," Greenspun said. "We're going to do our best to place everyone in jobs who wants to be placed."

The Sun was founded by the late Hank Greenspun, Brian Greenspun's father, in 1950. The newspaper grew out of a 1949 labor dispute that occurred when the International Typographical Union was locked out at the Review-Journal.

Those workers launched the thrice-weekly Las Vegas Free Press but when that paper ran into financial problems the union approached Hank Greenspun for help. He bought the paper and renamed it the Las Vegas Sun on July 1, 1950.

The Sun, then a morning daily, featured Greenspun's front page "Where I Stand" column and his highly publicized attacks against the likes of the Internal Revenue Service and infamous anti-communist witch-hunter Sen. Joe McCarthy.

The Joint Operating Agreement between the Sun and Review-Journal was signed in 1989 and enacted in 1990 to allow the Sun to continue to exist and to preserve two separate editorial voices for Las Vegas readers.

"There won't be anyone in this town who won't know that the Las Vegas Sun is alive and kicking," Greenspun told the Sun editorial staff. "Six times as many people take the Review-Journal as the Sun. Now, we will grow along with them."

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