New Sun boss: What you thought was news is not news

In an email sent to employees today, one day after KSNV and the Review-Journal reported on a management shakeup, Paul Hamilton, overseeing the Greenspun family finances and now in firm control of the Las Vegas Sun, sent this to the newspaper's employees:

Last night, a story was circulated regarding changes in the management of the Greenspun companies. I would like to set the record straight on a couple of points.

First, the board’s recent actions regarding management of the Greenspun Media companies merely formalized a management structure that had been in place for nearly a year. Second, collectively the family’s businesses are very healthy and are presently performing better than they have in years.

I have been serving, and will continue to serve, as president of The Greenspun Corporation and, by extension, each of its subsidiaries and affiliates, including the media group. As communicated yesterday, Brian Greenspun will continue to serve as Publisher and Editor.

Yesterday’s news was really not newsworthy. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to continuing to work with each of you.

When someone "sets the record straight" but doesn't deny anything that's on the record and when someone says something is "really not newsworthy," most reporters' antennae go up. When a news organization puts out Orwellian rhetoric like that, it should make every other news organization wonder.

I repeat what I said in this morning's newsletter to subscribers, along with the reality that news organizations that often demand the truth often have difficulty telling the truth about themselves: "The untold story here – and it is often hard for newspapers to tell the truth about themselves – is that this is the culmination of a long-running internal struggle among the Greenspuns, with the eldest now being stripped of most of his authority by his family members."

And that's the rest of the story (or some of it....).