Casino magnate and right-wing power broker Sheldon Adelson is behind the till-today mysterious purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal after all, reports the Huffington Post.
So reports the Wall Street Journal as well. And CNN. And Politico. And the Review-Journal itself.
And now The New York Times, along with more than 500 other outlets, if Google News’s count is correct.
The change in ownership of this locally influential but definitely local paper is big news even in this age of the decline of newspapers because of the vast sums of money Adelson spends supporting right-wing candidates. Naturally the question of the paper’s independence under the ownership of a partisan multibillionaire has arisen. The New York Post turned sharply right under Rupert Murdoch.
More relevantly, Adelson’s Israeli daily Israel Hayom is a pro-Netanyahu, right-leaning paper.
A lot of American newspapers lean left, of course – the Baltimore Sun and the Times to name just a couple.
But Nevada is an early caucus state. Slanted coverage and endorsements from its most influential daily could matter more than most.