18.12.2015 - 19:59 [ Techdirt ]

Report Claims That Big Political Funder Sheldon Adelson Is The ‚Anonymous‘ Owner Of Las Vegas Newspaper

Earlier this week, we wrote about the truly bizarre situation in which the Las Vegas Review Journal — the largest newspaper in Nevada — had been purchased for $140 million… and no one knew who the owner was. For fairly obvious reasons, this started to make a lot of people uncomfortable — including the reporters for the NVRJ. Suspicion quickly focused on big time political funders, with some noting that Nevada is an early primary state, and may play a key role in the presidential election. The Koch brothers, who are big time funders of candidates flat out denied it, leading to more intense scrutiny on the other key guess: Las Vegas casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a key funder of Mitt Romney in the last election.

Now, Dan Primack at Fortune is claiming that Adelson did, in fact purchase the paper, using the newly formed News + Media Capital Group LLC as a shell to try (apparently not very well) to hide that fact: