Newspaper Editor Steps Down After Publication’s Billionaire Buyer Unmasked

Mike Hengel, the top editor of Nevada’s biggest newspaper, has stepped down less than two weeks after the family of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson took control.

On the front page of Wednesday’s paper, a letter from the Adelsons to readers noted that Hengel and “other R-J employees” had accepted a “voluntary buyout offer from the previous owners”. The days since have not gone well for the new ownership of Nevada’s largest newspaper.

The Review-Journal notes that Hengel said he was accepting a buyout, that his decision to leave was “mutual”, and that he didn’t think it was a forced exit. The newspaper report said they were selected by the reporters.

In the statement on Tuesday, Adelson pledged to invest in the Review-Journal, and publish a “fair, unbiased and accurate” newspaper. One of those judges: “District Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez, whose current caseload includes Jacobs v. Sands, a long-running wrongful termination lawsuit filed against Adelson and his company, Las Vegas Sands Corp., by Steven Jacobs, who ran Sands’ operations in Macau”.

It said Gatehouse Media LLC, a subsidiary of the former owner New Media Investment Group, would continue to run the publication.

But few American newspaper owners have as vocal an agenda as Adelson, a Republican kingmaker known for handing over tens of millions to political campaigns.

Andrew Seaman, the Society of Professional Journalists’ ethics committee chairman, stresses that the story in the CT newspaper could be a coincidence but acknowledges the only way to describe the sequence of events is “weird”.

“I didn’t see the point of it. I still don’t see the point of it”, Hengel told The Associated Press on Tuesday, adding that he had not talked with anybody from the Adelson family or Schroeder.

Schroeder did not return phone calls and emails from The Associated Press.

For those who consider such sentiments the very embodiment of “the lady doth protest too much” logic that dominates conservative media, the editorial insisted that – unlike the people who now own the paper – the new owners “decided to buy the Review-Journal to help create a better newspaper – a forward thinking newspaper that is worthy of our Las Vegas community”.

Adelson’s spokesman for the Las Vegas Sands, Ron Reese, declined comment.

The new owners will begin a search for Hengel’s replacement, they said.

Last week, Mr. Adelson and his family eventually revealed that they purchased The Las Vegas Review-Journal on December 10 from New Media Investment Group for the amount of $140 million. The family did not disclose the purchase until the newspaper staff, media watchdogs and politicians, including some presidential candidates, demanded to know the identity of the new owners.