Las Vegas Sun combining print, web operations

LasVegasSun.com Masthead

The Las Vegas Sun, which operates as a joint-operating-agreement under the Las Vegas Review-Journal, has long maintained two, completely separate print and online operations, including everything from editorial, sales and human resource staffs.

That is now coming to an end.

Tuesday Sun parent-company, The Greenspun Media Group, announced it is merging the two operations.

The company sited reasons of wanting to streamline customer service operations, better utilize available resources and combat the continuing recession as reasons for the merger.

Layoffs will be necessary for this merger to take place, the company said. The reorganization will be effective immediately and should be nearly wrapped up by the end of the month.

Rob Curley, an Internet guru from Kansas, works at The Las Vegas Sun as the president and executive editor of Greenspun Interactive.

Under his tutelage, LasVegasSun.com has done incredible work and setting a standard for how online news should be done. They won a general excellence award from the Online News Association in 2009 and an EPpy Award for the second year in a row.

I closely watch what The Sun does with its Web operation because I want to learn, but I fear this downsizing is going to hurt the overall quality.

Greenspun says this will help better use available resources, but I’m not sure I buy that. Any time an organization cuts staff, it hurts the quality. That’s just the way it is.

With fewer people, it is shortsighted to think a news organization can maintain the high level of coverage it has done in the past, and this will hurt the consumer. No longer will the readers get the depth of reporting and content they have become accustomed to.

I’m confident The Sun will continue with its standard of excellence, but I just hope this merger actually benefits the company rather than hinders it.

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About toddvogts 833 Articles
Todd R. Vogts, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of media at Sterling College in Kansas. Previously, he taught yearbook, newspaper, newsmagazine, and online journalism in various Kansas high schools, and he ran a weekly newspaper in rural Kansas. He continues to freelance as a professional journalist from time to time. Also, Vogts is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the Journalism Education Association (JEA), and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (AEJMC), among others. He earned his Master Journalism Educator (MJE) certification from JEA in 2022. When he’s not teaching or writing, he runs his mobile disk jockey service and takes part in other entrepreneurial ventures. He can be reached at twitter.com/toddvogts or via his website at www.toddvogts.com.