Brian Greenspun on where newspaper readers should seek the truth

Sunday, March 19, 2006 | 7:22 a.m.

Not going to talk about Bill Walters. Wouldn't be prudent.

With apologies to President George H.W. Bush and with thanks for my opening line, I will heed my wife's admonition and give it a rest on the Royal Links Golf Course-city of Las Vegas story that seems to have created quite a stir among the landed gentry at the Review-Journal.

So, no more on Walters for today. But, I do have a thought or two about the kind of newspaper those folks down the street are running. One thought is about what they tell the public they are. The other thought has to do with the truth.

I know that much of the back-and-forth that goes on between the Sun and the R-J is just so much "inside baseball" and that the general public doesn't much care about it.

But there is something to be learned from this back-and-forth between the two newspapers and that is how to be a more discerning newspaper reader. After all, if we are to improve our minds and our knowledge, it is important to have a multitude of news sources. It is also critical that people be able to tell the who from the hooey in those news reports lest they be led down a path of subterfuge and disingenuity. (Fox News Channel springs to mind.)

When I decided to publish a report on the Royal Links issue that said the city of Las Vegas was getting a square deal, I knew that I would be taken to task by the folks at the other paper because they have a vested interest in discrediting any finding that may run counter to their narrow view of the world. No problem, having them say nasty things about me comes with the territory.

That's why I didn't pay much mind to the blatherings of the R-J's editor, Tom Mitchell, who tried his best to make me and the Sun a fool. It was obvious to me that they didn't succeed because in very short order they loosed their attack dog, John L. Smith, who promptly attacked my deceased father in an effort to make us look mercenary. Can you imagine? He succeeded only in making himself look small and pathetic.

When that didn't work they threw Steve Sebelius at me. He works at an alternative newspaper the R-J publishes on the side. He tried to defend Smith but succeeded only in showing his ignorance of the facts, facts which I am sure his newspaper bosses kept from him.

For example, Sebelius would have his few readers believe that the R-J asked questions of the people who wrote that independent study and that they remain to this day unanswered. He wrote in the March 9 edition:

"Actually, questions that the R-J raised on Feb. 26 ... have not been answered. Those articles revealed the study conducted by the Sun relied on favorable-to-Walters assumptions, ignored certain costs and misstated other facts to come up with a highly questionable conclusion."

The clear implication of his words is that the "independence and credibility" of the study were at risk because the questions posed went unanswered.

Here are the facts: On Feb. 28, 2006 (just two days after the Review-Journal raised them) the firm, SRR, did respond to the Review-Journal's questions. Each and every one of them. And the answers were clear and unambiguous and their conclusion remained the same. The deal between the city of Las Vegas and Royal Links was a reasonable transaction for the taxpayers.

Fact number two: up to the date that this is being written, almost two weeks since the questions were answered, the R-J has not seen fit to share those answers with its readers. Not only didn't they tell Sebelius - giving him the benefit of very little doubt - but they won't tell their readers, with whom they expect a bond of trust to exist.

So, here's the clincher: I don't think they even told their publisher, Sherm Frederick. That must be why he took the time out from his travelogue about doing business with a Nevada whoremaster to put in his two cents about l'affair Walters last Sunday.

Sherm is fond of saying "let the facts fall where they may," but this time they fell so far away from the truth that I am afraid there will be some explaining to do at that other newspaper.

The R-J publisher allowed himself to be used by his own people. He referred to the attack on a dead person of great merit as just some "poking fun" which, even for Sherm, was a stretch of journalistic integrity. And he allowed himself to abuse his readers by suggesting to them that the facts will fall anywhere close to the pages of the Review-Journal.

So, since the Sun and the Review-Journal share the same readers, I suppose if it is fact and truth they are looking for, it will be incumbent upon the Sun to fulfill that need since the R-J has been found wanting. Yet again.

My wife was right. I need to stop writing about the Bill Walters story. It is so much more fulfilling to talk about those hacks down the street.