I must admit that I was lucky enough, one time in the middle of the Jerry Burgess trial, to be a recipient of the wonderful help of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and for that I am, and will be for eternity, grateful, as much as I am grateful to then-editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Thomas Mitchell, for personally covering my (enforceable by subpoena) appearance, or should I say my planned appearance at the Las Vegas Federal Court, but I was never called in; all the feds wanted, and succeeded in getting, was to keep me out of the courtroom to complete the story that I began to write after several meetings with Jerry Burgess.In a press release dated November 7 the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press announced that its organization had joined others like Whitehouse Correspondence Association in “vehemently objecting to
the revocation of a CNN reporter’s access credentials” referring to CNN reporter Jim Acosta that was seen as being very disrespectful to the president and out of order to the rules of the press representative in the White House.
This newspaper, the Las Vegas Tribune, most likely follows the pattern of Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press; not because once they protected me from the powerful federal agents, but because we believe in the freedom of the press and because we had been and are suffering the same injustice from the dictatorial regime of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department under Sheriff Joseph Lombardo’s regime carried out by the female Director of Public Information Office of the Department.
Even if the cases are two completely different cases, the outcome is the same with the notable difference that no one at this newspaper has ever acted disrespectfully in any shape or manner on the premises of the headquarters of the Las Vegas Police Department.
Unfortunately, this time no one has come out in defense of the First Amendment in regard to the Las Vegas Tribune; not the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, nor any of those big mouth reporters that can’t stand the fact that this newspaper has more courage than all of them put together, besides the fact that the Las
Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has been very tricky in how the department behaves against the weekly newspaper that they cannot shut up.
The Public Information Office of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department has placed the Las Vegas Tribune “on freeze,” which mean they don’t return the phone calls of anyone in this organization and fail to notify the newsroom of any press conferences they hold.
Placing the newspaper “on freeze” is a low-level behavior normally used to avoid confrontation with discrimination charges that can result over the animosity between a member of the press and a government office, also frequently used by other big organizations.
I have said it a million times: I don’t need to attend those press conferences that are nothing more than public relations stints to make the office look good and to feed reporters a bunch of cockamamie stories that no one can use and that is why any good reporter has their own sources to get the “behind the scenes” side of any story.
That is why every elected official has his or her “favorite journalist” to leak a story when they need to do so.
However, going back to Jim Acosta, this time I must disagree with the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press. I believe that he acted inappropriately, disrespectful and was a discredit to his organization that actually doesn’t need help being discredited.
Can you imagine if I pulled a sting like that in a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department press conference? I would be banned from further press conferences, but I would be taken out of there in handcuffs and placed in solitary confinement and be “lost in the system” a little while.
I could go on with more of what could happen to me if I pulled a “Jim Acosta sting” with Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, but I don’t want to give them any more ideas than what they already have.
I believe that Jim Acosta was antagonizing the president, provoking him, knowing that it does not take much to make the president forget he is the president, even though he is the most effective president we’ve had in a very long time.
I hate to accept the fact that Jim Acosta succeeded at his task, whoever ordered him to do that task, and I am glad that he is out of the White House Press Corp. I witnessed the whole episode and I have to agree with my colleagues Sunny Day and Alexandra Cohen, President Trump needs to learn how to be president, but then he would not be the
president the American people elected.
My name is Rolando Larraz, and as always, I approved this column. Rolando Larraz is Editor in Chief of the Las Vegas Tribune. His column appears weekly in this newspaper. To contact Rolando Larraz, email him
at: Rlarraz@lasvegastribune.com or at 702-272-4634.
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