A Newspaper in Las Vegas, at Risk of Closing, Divides a Family

Stephens Media, owner of The Las Vegas Review-Journal, wants to dissolve its joint agreement with The Las Vegas Sun, intended to preserve newspapers. In exchange, the Greenspun family, which owns The Sun, would receive the domain name lasvegas.com, a Web site the family currently leases from Stephens for up to $2.5 million a year and then subleases to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

Brian Greenspun is the president of The Sun. His family has owned the paper since his parents founded it in 1950. His brother, Danny Greenspun, and two sisters, Susan Greenspun Fine and Jane Greenspun Gale, all voted to accept the offer, but Brian wants to fight. Last month, he accused his siblings of “deciding to kill The Las Vegas Sun,” and he is suing Stephens, claiming that the offer gives The Review-Journal a local monopoly over news gathering and opinion. At stake, he says, is Las Vegas’s future as a two-newspaper town. Doing away with the joint operating agreement “is equivalent to buying The Sun and shutting it down,” he said, adding of his siblings, “It’s a business deal to them.”