lately, leveraging his regular appearances on “Pawn Stars,” “American Restoration,” and “Mysteries at the Museum” to encourage more locals to visit the museum. The museum trades largely on its status as heir to the collections of early Las Vegas entrepreneur Anna Roberts Parks. Parks, perhaps best known for founding Palm Mortuary, was a lifelong collector of local artifacts, rocks, shells, Native American arts and crafts, and “even a stuffed penguin,” Hall-Patton says. “Her tastes were eclectic.” Today, the main exhibit hall at the museum, named for Parks, features exhibits about Southern Nevada from prehistoric to modern times. Also on the 30-acre site are 20 restored historic buildings, including a newspaper print shop, the 1932 Boulder City Depot and the Candlelight Wedding Chapel. (1830 S. Boulder Highway, 455-7955) — Megan Edwards
ON THE TOWN No time is better for a visit to the Clark County Museum than Dec. 7 and 8. Its “Heritage Street” will sparkle with historically accurate holiday lights and decorations — to tunes by madrigal singers from Green Valley High School. Admission (and hot chocolate) is free.
14 | Desert
Pundit in flight: Jon Ralston is taking his brand solo.
THE media
The man, the mouth, the legend — now solo “I guess I was hungrier than I thought,” says Jon Ralston. He’s just devoured a personal pizza at a recent lunch — in the same way he can devour a flip-flopping politician on his TV gabfest: in a flurry of compulsive piranha bites. Or maybe it’s nervous eating. Because, after 12 years as a political columnist at the Las Vegas Sun, Ralston has left his perch at the paper and taken his platform solo. On Sept. 19, he launched ralstonreports.com. He’s also changed the name of his daily show on KSNV-Channel 3 to “Ralston Reports.” The vervy brand name-iness of it (his name! a verb!) is not accidental. “This is a leap of faith for me,” he says. “Over the years, I’ve built my brand as the politics guy. Now the question is: Is that worth something to people? Trying to monetize a brand is a gamble. But it’s a gamble to try to monetize anything on the Internet.” It’ll be especially interesting in the case of Ralston, a media stalwart in Las Vegas since the mid ’80s. He’s long touted his fierce and independent journalist’s mind; now he’s doing a stint as independent businessman. With no staff and no investors — and no Greenspun backing — he’s flying ralstonreports.com by himself. His split from Greenspun is widely believed to be tied to the departure of former “Face to Face with Jon Ralston” Executive Producer and Sun reporter Dana Gentry, who resigned
Companion | NOVEMBER 2012
from the Sun after being yanked from covering an ongoing story about investor lawsuits against Aspen Financial Services — but says that wasn’t the only reason he left. (Las Vegas Sun Publisher and Editor Brian Greenspun declined to comment on “personnel issues.”) But Ralston’s new venture is not exactly a blind cliff dive. He inherited from the Sun his 750-1,000 Flash newsletter subscribers, who pay $350 a year for email scoops and breaking news from Ralston. (The premium package is $600 a year, $1,200 for corporate accounts). But in an age when free punditry is just a click away on the Internet, can a site like ralstonreports.com thrive? Even as we eat, he’s restlessly brainstorming about hiring help to grow subscribers, setting up a corporation, the trials of learning HTML … Gentry is upbeat about the prospects. She isn’t involved in the website, but she’s worked with Ralston long enough to trust his instincts — whether political, journalistic or business. “Ralston is practically a household name in national press circles,” she says, citing his frequent name-checks on shows such as “Morning Joe” and “The Rachel Maddow Show.” As far as making quality content profitable? “That’s the conundrum,” she says. “Smarter people than me are trying to figure that out.” — Andrew Kiraly
j o n r a l s to n p h oto : b i ll h u g h e s
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