Las Vegas plays a key role for another Pulitzer Prize winner

In 2024 I wrote in this space about how far-away reporters won a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting about events that happened in the Las Vegas area. A team from Reuters writing about the nefarious business activities of Elon Musk described a suburban Las Vegas office of his Tesla devoted to talking Tesla buyers out of demanding better battery performance for their electric vehicles. That Reuters story is still online (click here). A follow-up at the end of my post noted that the article about the prestigious Pulitzers in the next day’s Las Vegas Review-Journal made no mention of the big story reported out under its very nose.

This year, we have a variation on this theme of no coverage. The annual Pulitzer Prizes were announced in New York on Monday. The story about the awards in the print edition of the next day’s RJ–now the country’s second largest newspaper never to have won one–made reference in some manner to 12 of the 15 journalism and special citation awards (another eight were given for arts and letters). As it happens, one of the three awards not referenced by the RJ concerned material rather unfavorable to the billionaire Adelson family, which has owned the paper since 2015.

Mark Lamster, the architecture critic of The Dallas Morning News, won the Criticism award for, in the words of the citation, “using wit and expertise to amplify his opinions and advocate for city residents.” A lot of those opinions expressed heated opposition to a proposal to tear down the striking, nearly half-century-old I.M. Pei-designed Dallas City Hall and replace it with a government-subsidized basketball arena to house the Dallas Mavericks. The team is majority owned by the Adelsons, whose monied members live in Las Vegas. Continue reading

Another dubious Las Vegas news site surfaces

Las Vegas TodaySix years ago I wrote about a highly questionable online news site that went by the name of  Las Vegas Herald. “First published 1900,” it declared on its website. This was an obviously bogus claim since the population of Las Vegas then was only 18 (the city would not even come into existence until 1905). The site consisted of rewritten press releases and occasional stories under what seems to be phony bylines. Even before AI was well known, I suspected computers played a big role in generating the copy.

I discovered “Las Vegas Herald” was part of a worldwide network of websites with similar, almost legit-sounding names run by an organization in New Delhi, India. Its unexpected goal, I wrote then, was to “amplify favorable coverage about India and negative coverage about Pakistan.”

“Las Vegas Herald” is still around (I refuse to link to it). But now there’s a new dubious entry in the Las Vegas-as-a-pit-stop-in-sketchy-news-enterprises business. It’s called “Las Vegas Today.” It’s part of a network of sites owned by a PR firm that steals journalism produced by legitimate operations.

Futurism, a respected New York City-based tech news website, published a story yesterday blowing the lid off the collection of more than 50 websites branded as National Today. The lengthy article by flatly called the operation a “plagiarism machine” filching “original journalism at incredible scale,” with no credit to the original authors or writers. Much of National Today’s copy appears generated by AI, which means it contains errors. Although not specifically mentioned in the story, “Las Vegas Today” is one of those websites. (I am grateful to CNN’s “Reliable Sources” newsletter for highlighting the Futurism story.) Continue reading

In Las Vegas, which judicial pay status is fake news?

From The Nevada Independent:

From the Las Vegas Review-Journal:

Michele Fiore is a Donald J. Trump supporter who gained his pardon after being convicted on seven federal charges of siphoning off money from a nonprofit and a political action committee she controlled for personal use. Among the victims was a fellow Republican, Nevada Governor Joe Lombardo, who testified against her at trial. A former Las Vegas city councilwoman, she was named a justice of the peace is nearby Nye County even though she is not a lawyer. It is this post she remains suspended from.

Sitting in the New To Las Vegas world headquarters, I read the unanimous seven-page court opinion issued on April 10. The decision involved three different cases brought by Fiore against the Nevada Commission of Judicial Discipline, which suspended her, and so is a little confusing.

But the holding is clear. Fiore is suspended with pay–in her case, according to other records, about $85,000 a year. So score one for the accuracy of the Nevada Independent.

Follow William P. Barrett’s work on X by clicking here.

Follow William P. Barrett’s work on Threads by clicking here.

Follow William P. Barrett’s work on BlueSky by clicking here.

UPDATED: In Las Vegas, how about a perp pool on when the first Trump pardonee gets re-arrested?

perp pool

Jimmy Hoffa (via Wikipedia)

SEE UPDATES AT END OF POST

Originally published January 21, 2025
Updated January 22, 2025
Updated January 27, 2025
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A half-century ago, I was part of a ghoulish office pool started in the Philadelphia bureau of the Associated Press, where I worked at the time. On what day of the week would Jimmy Hoffa’s body be found? He was the convicted, mobbed-up ex-Teamsters Union president who suddenly vanished after leaving a Detroit-area restaurant in 1975. His disappearance quickly became a national sensation. It was widely believed–then and now–Hoffa was done in at the behest of one of his supposed organized crime cronies.

Six of us hacks each pitched in $5.00 (about $30 in today’s dollars). I chose Saturday.

As it turned out, Hoffa’s remains were never found. He’s still missing. So no one won the office pool (except my supervisor, who didn’t return the wagers even though there was no “winner”). Hoffa was legally declared dead in 1982, although the case officially is still open.

The Hoffa bet popped into my mind amid the big news last night that newly re-inaugurated President Donald J. Trump pardoned or commuted nearly 1,600 rioters who had a hand in storming the Capitol in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021. Those receiving his grace included several convicted of seditious conspiracy.

Since I’m now New to Las Vegas, let’s start a new pool. In what month going forward will the first of these releasees be re-arrested on charges of committing another criminal act of some kind? In my view, with such a large universe of suddenly emboldened suspected hooligans for whom law and order has proven to be an elusive concept, it’s certain to happen. Just a matter of when.
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