Vegas politician threatens journalist: no, not Sen. Harry Reid
Joel Stein's Aug. 24 Time magazine cover story on Vegas continues to draw reactions, mostly negative, in Vegas. Stein's previous coverage of Vegas for Time over the years has been positive. And, in truth, his article offered no new news that has not been reported in some form locally and nationally. Stein only put it all together and found memorable characters, examples and stitched them into a full and sad explication of life in Vegas now.
Yet, the local press has been brutal. But not everyone. Review-Journal columnist John L. Smith, certainly the most widely read general interest columnist in Vegas, wrote on the day the story initially appeared that Stein by and large hit the mark. Smith noted how Stein covered both the major players as well as the effect the economic collapse of Vegas has had on the regular casino workers. Smith wrote:Not surprisingly, [Sheldon] Adelson and [Steve] Wynn mostly talk about themselves. If they drank too much of their own Kool-Aid, overextended themselves, or misread the many signs of an approaching recession, they can't bring themselves to admit it. Thousands of employees have been cut loose up and down the Strip, and Stein touches on the ravages of the recession.
Smith went on to call the piece "well worth reading."
But just a few days later, his colleague at the Review-Journal, Geoff Schumacher, attacked Stein's piece for quoting the optimists of Vegas but failing to be convinced by them. The problem remains that Vegas is a city with thousands of hotel rooms going empty each night, hoping to find salvation by opening more hotel rooms soon. And further, most of the Vegas resorts are trying to survive the recession with a mountain of debt that keeps many of the major casino companies out of bankruptcy only thanks to the flexibility and will of creditors. One of the new Strip resort projects, the Fontainebleau, has already gone bankrupt before construction was completed, while another, the Cosmopolitan, has been foreclosed on by the bank. There is little rational reason for bogus optimism. Despite this, Schumacher attacks Stein for viewing reality fairly, a result he blames on Stein's outsider perspective. Schumacher writes:Stein hears the city's optimism but he's not quite convinced.... Instead, Stein might have pursued this path. I am among those who believe Las Vegas will come back strong. Las Vegas is a pulsing beacon for the human animal, a place that has taken full advantage of our insatiable desire for risk and release.
Is Schumacher serious? "A pulsing beacon for the human animal" negates the empty rooms on the Strip despite never-before-seen bargain pricing, massive debt loads being carried by the resort companies and the global recession that Stein presents as among the problems facing Vegas. (There are plenty more, like the unemployment rate.) I think someone has been spending too much time reading "The Secret," and it isn't Stein.
Schumacher walks around the issue that Stein is not at all wrong about anything by offering the faint praise of calling Stein's accurate reporting "workmanlike." Then Schumacher gets all misty with nostalgia, noting Stein's supposed inferiority to Kurt Andersen's "Time" cover story on Vegas from 15 years ago. Of the Andersen piece, Schumacher writes: "The piece, beautifully written by Kurt Andersen, was prompted by the Strip megaresort boom and reflected the anything-goes optimism of that era." Optimism is good and pessimism is bad; I get that. But the facts are different now than 15 years ago. Does Schumacher get that? It seems the height of foolishness to expect the same story in 2009 amid foreclosures, declining visitor volume and with so many of the resorts so deeply in debt.
But the most amazing criticism, the one that caused me to get in touch with Stein yesterday for a response, came from Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman. First Goodman penned a letter to Time attacking Stein while again not challenging the facts of the story or mentioning his own factual smudge: that the city limits do not include the Strip, thus he is not even the mayor of the geography covered in most of the story.Of course, politicians write silly letters all the time. But Mayor Goodman always seems willing to be more outrageous and embarrassing than your average politician. So, contacted by the Las Vegas Sun's John Katsilometes for comment about his Time letter on Stein's article, the mayor told the Sun:
I'm not concerned about anything other than the world knowing that Las Vegas is a great place, and anyone who doesn't agree with that, including newspaper reporters, can drop dead.
It isn't often that a mayor who spent much of his career representing accused mobsters and accused killers (folks whom I guess he thinks made Las Vegas a "great place" and whom he now wants a museum to commemorate) suggests that a reporter should die. Was that a threat? Certainly it has more potency as a threat than Sen. Harry Reid's rather pallid suggestion that he wished a local newspaper would go out of business. That one made national headlines. But this is an actual death wish for those disagreeing with the mayor or even reporting facts that are not positive enough for the mayor's taste.
Anyway, I called Stein, an old friend and colleague, to get his reaction to all the local responses his story has generated. In fact, it turns out, Stein, who became a father while reporting the Vegas story, had not known about most of the reactions after it appeared, and he was a bit surprised by it all. "I don't think it was a negative story," Stein insists. He loves Vegas and remains upbeat about its future despite all of the serious problems.
As for Goodman's comments, Stein blames himself for not interviewing Goodman for the Time story. Stein has interviewed Goodman before for other stories on Vegas. In fact, this is his second cover story for Time on Vegas. And Stein gets what local press already knows: The mayoral ego likes to see the Goodman name in any story on Vegas. Stein feels that vanity in part is what underlies the mayor's attitude toward this particular article by him. Stein says:
As to the "drop dead" comment, Stein seems unconcerned: "As for 'drop dead,' I think he still has the connections to make that happen. So, again I want to apologize and kiss his ring not only because I like him but for my personal safety."He is totally right. You should not ever go to Las Vegas and not talk to Oscar Goodman. That was insane of me. I should have called him. I should have kissed his ring. I was stupid not to. But I already sat down with a lot of local politicians and was writing about all of Vegas and so I did not have space in the story to interview him. But I am a fan of Oscar Goodman. I think he is super smart. But his job is to promote Vegas. It is rude to say this but he mayors like a defense lawyer and I had so many other people doing that for him in the story that I did not need him to do it.
Photo: Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman; credit: Sarah Gerke