Real story behind the demise of the Las Vegas Sun

Anywhere that doesn't have bedbugs.

 

I honestly don't know how Curley does it. He comes off as a nice person who is very quirky.
He landed a Deputy Editor position at OCR during a hiring freeze. He said he was brought in as a consultant and got the DE position later. That was bullshit. We never figured out how he pulled that off.
He was supposed to be some kind of digital guru, but nothing ever worked. He rose in the ranks at OCR. Then he claimed he flat-out told the Kushner-Spitz Undynamic Duo that they were "stupid" to put a paywall on the website. Then when those two guys were carried out on their shields, Curley became the Editor.
He found a place to live where he could see Disneyland from his apartment. He wore something Disney every day, a pin or a T-shirt or a lanyard.
After he was replaced when Singleton's group took over, he was hired to be the Editor in Spokane.

 

Who said the Las Vegas Sun has had a demise? I went to their website and it still exists. The JOA is alive. The Sun is thriving. WTF?

 

The Sun still has an inserted section into the Review-Journal and maintains a website.

e.

 

Don't know Curley personally, and didn't know anything about his past until this thread. Looks like there was quite a bit of micromanagement and misadventure in Las Vegas.

But IHMO, since his arrival in Spokane, the Spokesman-Review has received a much-needed kick in the ass. Its reporting and layout has improved greatly in the past year. And I say this as someone who rarely praises management.

 

Isn't that because it's a family owner? Somebody committed to print still?

 

Both of those statements are correct. It's a very old community demographics-wise, so the decline in print advertising has happened more slowly here. But believe me, it's happened and is continuing to happen, especially with any national advertising.

 

I read the Wiki about the Sun. It was a morning paper until 1989 when it went into a JOA with the LVRJ. By 1989 it was pretty clear that afternoon newspapers were dying. Why did the Sun agree to become an afternoon newspaper? My guess is that for whatever reason the LVRJ has the dominant paper in the market and the Sun was trying to hold on. The demise of the Sun can be attributed to that decision. The paper has been on life support since then.

 

It's really hard to have a conversation with him without catching a fishy/creepy/fraudulent vibe.

 

You know him? Please tell us more. I've been reading stuff on different websites and I can't tell if he's the suit enemy or somebody I wanna buy a brewski.

 

He is definitely not a stuffy suit, so having a beer with him is probably the answer you're looking for. There wasn't any "do more with less" or "right-sizing" etc., bullshit.
I just happened to be sitting next to him and his young son at a hockey game one time. He wasn't the Editor yet, but a Deputy Editor, outranking me. He is folksy and friendly. I asked him how he got into hockey, being from Kansas, I think. He said he put himself through college by stringing Kansas City Scouts games and some other minor league hockey.
I never worked closely with him at OCR because he wasn't much involved with sports. Then he landed in the Editor's chair. The day he was promoted by the new ownership, he did the press conference and and a bunch of in-house meetings with the different departments. He was wearing a Mickey Mouse T-shirt under an unbuttoned dress shirt and, maybe, Dockers or something like that.
When the staff reduction announcement occurred in June 2014, at the meeting I attended, there were about 30 of us in a large conference room. He batted around the buyout/layoff question, dodging the number. He said he didn't know specifically. More than 20? Yes. It got up to 80 and he said, "Yeah, it could be." Then he got to the nut of it. I will swear to this day that he was looking directly at me (not glancing around the room). He said, "If anybody in this room has ever had any inkling of leaving the Register, I strongly urge you to do it now."
That was my cue to bail and end my career. He was asked about departing employees receiving unemployment. He said the company would not contest it. That was a lie. They did contest it. I had to do a phone interview and was denied unemployment based on them saying it was my decision to leave. I had to appear before an administrative law judge and was denied again. Among other things, I told him the Editor of the newspaper said specifically that they would not contest unemployment claims. The judge said, "Well, they did." But in a followup written appeal, I was granted unemployment.
So, the last time I saw Curley, he lied to my face.