Counting down the days for the Las Vegas Sun?

Another federal court filing this week offers further hints that the days of the Las Vegas Sun may be numbered.

With deadlines looming for discovery documents to be turned over and depositions to be taken in the federal case in which Sun editor and publisher Brian Greenspun is attempting to block an agreement by his brother and two sisters to end the joint operating agreement (JOA) with the Las Vegas Review-Journal under which the Sun appears as a section in the morning newspaper, the two parties filed a stipulation to extend those deadlines. The stipulation was signed by Leif Reid for Greenspun and Colby Williams for the R-J.

Brian Greenspun

Earlier Leif Reid, son of Harry Reid, sought to withdraw as an attorney for Greenspun. Probably a conflict was discovered at his law firm, Lewis Roca Rothgerber.

But on the last day of February Leif Reid filed a document with the court saying the motion to withdraw might become moot in the next 30 days.

I speculated that this might mean the parties were about to come to an agreement to cease publishing the Sun.

This latest document says the motion to withdraw might become moot in the next 14 days. Same speculation applies, only sooner.

Greenspun had futilely argued that ending the JOA would be an antitrust violation. In truth, it was the JOA that violated antitrust law as it stood until Congress gave newspapers an exemption under the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970. The dozens of JOAs effectively created newspaper monopolies that retarded the potential for real competition from a viable entity by saving the bacon of failing newspapers under the pretext of preserving an alternative editorial voice.

Most of the JOAs created under the Newspaper Preservation Act have since been dissolved.

The suit is a senseless and futile gesture.