An award winning journalist whose reporting rocked the world of journalism... Howard Stutz of The Nevada Independent is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

A veteran gaming reporter, he's called Las Vegas home for nearly four decades.

And in 2015 when a secret buyer bought the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the newspaper he worked for, he helped uncover the political force behind that purchase.

Now a Senior Reporter with The Nevada Independent, Howard Stutz, thank you for joining us on Nevada Week In Person.

(Howard Stutz) I'm honored to be part of this show.

Thank you, Amber.

-I think you are an obvious choice.

Let's start with December 2015.

Your employer, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, you find out you have a new owner, a new boss, essentially, who wants to remain anonymous.

-Yeah.

It was, it was fascinating.

It was like we're in a-- we have this whole company-wide meeting that's planned by the publisher at the time, and in the middle of it, he announces that we've been sold.

Okay?

We're all sitting there looking at each other.

Well, right before that, Jim Wright, who was my boss, he was the Deputy Editor of the RJ, he comes in.

Myself and Jennifer Robison are sitting.

We just want to get close to the door and get out of there, this whole publisher rah-rah session.

And he says, You two are going to-- he says, You're gonna write a 1A story about this meeting.

-1A meaning front page.

-1A meaning front-page story.

And I'm like, I had an expletive-- [laughter] - --that I won't say on air.

But I said, No, really?

On this?

And he's like, Do you have a notebook?

And that's when I knew Jim was serious.

And Jennifer just looks up and she goes, We've been sold, haven't we?

And went into this whole thing and said-- They bring out this stooge, the guy named Michael Schroeder, who's like the representative of the buyers.

They said "buyers" at the time.

And we had been sold.

And then Mike Hengel, our editor, asked, Well, who owns us?

And he said, You don't need to own-- you don't need to know the names of the owners.

They just want you to do your jobs.

-Hmm.

-Well, as Mike described it, it was like throwing raw meat to a bunch of lions because we were gonna, we were gonna figure it out.

I mean, we had an idea it was the Adelson family with Sheldon Adelson.

He wanted to buy the Review-Journal before.

-Casino magnate.

-Right.

-Las Vegas Sands Corporation.

-He had always a love/hate relationship with the reporters of the RJ.

More of a hate relationship with me.

He didn't like the way I covered the company sometimes.

So it was a-- we knew, and we just did our work.

It was myself, Jennifer Robison, James DeHaven were the three main reporters on it.

John L. Smith, the columnist, was working on it.

Jim Wright, our deputy editor, Mike Hengel, our editor, you know, they turned us loose, said, Go for it.

And we did the digging that we needed to do to find out.

-So they're the new owners, and they're not stepping in to say you can't report this?

-No.

Nobody stepped in and-- well, they probably didn't know we were going to.

-Okay.

-We just went and did it, and I got the tip.

We were following all these different leads.

The real focus was on the Adelson family, and the point being-- it was in December of 2015.

In April 2015, the Review-Journal, Stevens Media sold the Review-Journal to GateHouse.

This is the company that owned the paper at the time of the sale.

GateHouse paid $106 million to buy all of Stevens Media.

This is the Review-Journal, which is the flagship.

A whole bunch of small to midsize weeklies and dailies throughout the US, about 50-something.

They pay 106 million for it.

The morning after this announcement-- GateHouse is a public company, so they-- it's a material financial deal.

They have to disclose it.

The press release comes out and says they sold the Review-Journal for $140 million.

They bought the whole company for 106 million and then just sold the Re view-Journal for 140 million.

So whoever bought the RJ really wanted the RJ and grossly overpaid for the RJ, I would say, at that time.

And got a tip that it was, "Look at the son-in-law."

-Look at the son-in-law.

-Son-in-law.

What the heck?

And it turns out Sheldon Adelson's son-in-law, Patrick Dumont, who is married to Miriam Adelson's daughter, he's on the board of-- he works for Sands.

They find out he handles all the Sands, the family's business dealings.

We put it all together, and I remember we had turned in the story to Mike Hengel.

He ran it up the flagpole.

Never heard a word back.

And it's 7:15 that night, and he pushed the button and went public with it.

And we were right, and that's where it went.

-For those who may not understand, why was it a big deal that Sheldon Adelson had bought the newspaper, the biggest newspaper in Nevada?

-Biggest newspaper in Nevada.

We were the record for Nevada.

I mean, we were the newspaper of record.

He had a lot of dealings with the newspaper he didn't like.

He would deal with the different publishers.

He would get angry about different stories about our coverage on gaming and different topics.

The family, Miriam Adelson owned a newspaper in Israel, Israel Hayom.

So they had this dealings, you know, with newspapers.

And this is a gentleman who was also the biggest donor to Republican candidates throughout the US.

And now he's going to own the newspaper in Nevada.

The RJ was very, was more of a conservative libertarian-leaning newspaper, and that changed.

The editorial stance changed pretty heavily to much more hardcore conservative to fit the new owners.

-You do think that there has been a change of the Review-Journal since-- -Yeah.

I knew my career was over.

Looking back now eight years, eight years.

Yeah, I knew I was probably done.

They really didn't get rid of me.

I had to figure out how to get rid of myself.

Everybody that was involved is gone from there.

I left.

Jennifer left.

James, he already had a job.

He was leaving anyway.

Eric Hartley, who was involved with it.

Jim left.

Mike Hengel left.

So it was a, you know, we knew it was a big changeover.

-Because you were concerned that his ownership would influence your coverage?

-I tried to give up the Sands beat.

I've covered in gaming.

I'm the gaming reporter for the biggest newspaper, the biggest state, the biggest gaming state in the US.

I tried to give up the Sands beat as an idea.

You know, I'll pick up something else alongside of it.

That didn't work.

It was just I was a concern going in.

How am I going to report about any other company when you're owned by-- when the newspaper is owned by the owner of one of the bigger gaming companies on the Strip?

-How was this different than like Jeff Bezos buying The Washington Post, the Boston Red Sox owner buying The Boston Globe?

-They didn't do it in secret.

Jeff Bezos marched into the newsroom at The Washington Post when he bought it and said, I want to make The Washington Post a great newspaper again.

We never saw the Adelsons, even after we reported it.

They came out with a statement.

The night we broke the story that they bought the paper, they came up with a statement.

We ran it separate from our story.

We didn't include it in the story.

But they came out with a statement saying that they bought the newspaper.

It was very different.

John Harrington buying The Boston Globe was very public about it, just as Bezos was.

The fact that the Adelsons weren't very public, that said something about it to all of us.

-Uncovering that story, the biggest accomplishment of your journalism career?

-Probably the most high profile.

I mean, there were other stories I wrote during my time at the RJ.

Now a lot more now with The Nevada Independent.

But there were a lot of stories that I was very proud of.

But I guess nationally, we got a lot of attention.

We ended up on CNN.

-Yeah.

-I've got, you know, being interviewed about it.

We won a wonderful award, the Medill award from Northwestern.

And we all got to go back to Chicago and talk about it to the journalism students.

It was supposed to be about a 45-minute session.

We ended up sitting there for 90 minutes talking about it.

It was fascinating.

It was fun to do.

So, yeah, I guess I could say it is something that I'll always remember, and I'm very proud that I did, that I was involved with.

-You would get back into journalism with CDC Gaming Reports.

And then?

-And then-- Yeah, I was with CDC Gaming Reports about two years.

It's a national newsletter that follows gaming.

I did some work on some things that I think I've improved it.

The people that Cory Roberts, the publisher, and everybody hired after me, I think they've built upon what I did and done a tremendous job with it.

But Jon Ralston started The Nevada Independent in 2017 because of what happened with the RJ and that we needed an independent voice here.

It's modeled after The Texas Tribune.

We're a nonprofit news organization.

It started out with six people.

Today we have over 20 reporters.

We've got reporting staff in Reno, Las Vegas.

We're very proud of what we're doing.

We're working with Vegas PBS on the "Democracy Project."

-The growth of nonprofit journalism, what do you think about that?

-It's fascinating because we're, we're not beholden to, you know, to advertisers, and we're not-- there's a lot of things we're not beholden to.

It's donations.

And we, we've done very well.

Jon, our revenue team have done very, very well in building up, you know, The Independent.

I mean, to the point, I started writing for him as freelancer in 2019 while I was with CDC.

And we would run those stories in CDC Gaming.

Finally came aboard in 2021, which really it was exciting to be able to be part of it.

I'm the oldest person on the staff.

I'm very proud to say that.

Jon had said, You're gonna-- these kids are going to learn from you.

Well, I've learned from them.

I've spent four days up in Carson City this year on the A's, the A's story with Jacob and Tabs and Shawn.

It was fun to work with them and learn about what they're-- how we do things.

It's all there's no print.

We don't have to worry about print deadlines like you did in newspaper.

It's all online.

It's very collaborative.

And so it's very enjoyable, and I'm enjoying what I'm doing.

They needed-- very known as political covered, known for the political coverage because of Jon, obviously.

We needed gaming.

That's why I'm happy to come aboard, and I'm now doing Sports Business with it.

-Right.

And I noticed that you are doing a lot of national interviews about the A's potential relocation.

I still say "potential" because I just don't feel comfortable saying it's going to happen.

What is it like doing those interviews as a Dodgers fan?

-Well, it's been fun.

As a Dodgers fan, I mean, listen, I love my Dodgers.

And maybe I'll get to see Ohtani play here if there's ever a, you know, if the stadium is built.

One of the stories I was proud I did last summer, Dave Calvert, our photographer up in Reno, he and I went to Oakland in August for like two games.

They were playing the Rangers.

It was, you know, just talk to fans.

And we saw the site where they originally thought the Oakland, at the Howard Terminal in the port where we thought the A's were going to go.

We thought the A's, that's where they were going to build a stadium.

Talked to a lot of fans.

They were very passionate about it.

They knew I was coming.

They appreciated the fact that we were there to tell their side of the story that they're hurt.

It hurts for them to lose the team after 57 years.

You know people-- a guy who I talked with was there with his 10-year-old, 10-12 year old kid, because Max Scherzer was pitching that night for the Rangers, and he wanted his son to have what he had, to grow up with a baseball team to root for.

Don't know if he's gonna root for the Giants.

I'm happy I was able to, we were able to do that story.

We're planning on going back hopefully for Opening Day this year or a few times in 2024 to see what it's like, what's going on, you know, as things move forward.

But it is a fascinating story to tell.

-Last question: Your entry into journalism, why'd you get into it?

-I got into it in college.

I thought I was gonna be a broadcaster, you know, like you.

-You very well could have been.

-But I got into print, and I really liked writing.

I've always enjoyed writing.

And at San Diego State, it was a very good journalism school, worked for The Daily Aztec.

Worked for the LA Times as an intern.

Got this job when I graduated.

I got this job at the Las Vegas Sun as a sports writer in 1982, covering a team called the Las Vegas Silvers.

It was the Continental Basketball Association team.

The biggest sport at the time was UNLV Basketball playing at the Convention Center.

So I've kind of come full circle now that I'm doing sports again.

-I have so many questions I could ask, but we've run out of time.

Howard Stutz, The Nevada Independent, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Thank you.

-For more interviews like this, go to vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.