I wrote a fortnightly column for the Saturday edition of the Las Cruces Sun-News for over 6 years. I resigned to revise my book on Shakespeare and make it available for free on an academic website. Editorial-page editor Walt Rubel’s email was effusive in its praise: “Thanks for your column.” Notwithstanding his columns urging readers to vote for certain candidates or issues, he then wrote a column in which he criticized me for expecting to influence people on issues important to the city or state. Eventually, I returned to writing occasional, though frequent, blogs, without deadlines or limitations. Soon after its current editor, Jessica Onsurez, received some, she or someone else blocked them for a time apparently because they raised “security” concerns. Meanwhile, the Sun-News building keeps its doors locked at all times. Although articles and columns give their emails and telephone numbers, the writers rarely respond to calls or messages, at least to mine. It has published none of my letters or op-eds in recent years. Poor me.
The Sun News is typical of many small-city papers. Despite a growing population, its readership has shrunk. In 2011, population was 100,000, total circulation was 22,500, and the paper was hefty. In 2022, population was 115,000, total circulation was roughly 15,000, and the paper was flimsy. In between, the website version, which mixes past and present stories, some “front page” for days, may account for some loss of print readers. But the coverage in both print and electronic formats is superficial, especially on serious topics. By contrast, Truth or Consequences with a population of 6,000, one-twentieth of Las Cruces’s, has a weekly liberal paper in a conservative populace, the Sierra County Sun, which offers more serious and comprehensive coverage of local government than the Sun-News editor and writers can imagine.
I dropped my subscription to the Sun-News long ago, but I occasionally visit its website to see its coverage, with a special eye to politics and the police. According to the website, the paper “covers public safety and local government in Las Cruces.” The core of this coverage is headline stuff, usually with scanty, if any, investigative follow-up, despite former claims to the contrary. The paper was not first to publish the unedited body-cam footage of the Baca murder. It did not report on LCPD’s participation in a supposedly “independent” investigation or its leadership at the meeting reviewing the report to the DA. Nor on why DA Gerald Byers, after promising a decision about charges within a few days, kicked the case up to the NMAG. Nor on why two NMAGs have done nothing about the case. Nor on why the current NMAG claims that the investigation is on-going when there is neither the reason nor the appearance of a reason for it to go on.
The Sun-News did not report on Jennifer Vega’s late fall departure from office as City Attorney without public notice. Nor on why no one on City Council or in the city administration has explained her departure. Six or so months later, City Manager Ifo Pili said that she was fired but gave no reason. Even local gossip—personality conflict, low staff morale, disorganization and dysfunction, loss of confidence in her work, expensive settlements, kickbacks on settlements or other forms of illicit enrichment, threatened lawsuit for sexual harassment—would have had some value by prompting those in the know to set the record straight. The idea that the departure of a senior and influential public official is not newsworthy discredits the paper for dereliction of journalistic duty. The suspicion of cover-up in serving political masters, not the public, is quite plausible.
Either dereliction or cover-up seems part of the paper’s effort to ingratiate itself with the powers-that-be and ignore a public assumed to be politically supine or stupid or both. For example, the paper’s coverage of the work session on a proposed oversight board reported no citizen comments, mostly favorable on the proposal and unfavorable on City Council. The paper’s readers can be forgiven for their ignorance about this issue as well as many others because the Sun-News does its best to keep them ignorant.
In this context, the absence of an editorial voice in the Sun-News is notable. Time was when its editorial column addressed matters of concern to the city. Not now. It relies on a variety of columnists to write according to their predilections. So the paper itself does not speak for the city or to the city or its government. Recent research on “rural” papers “shows that in these ‘news deserts’ where community journalism has died, … local governments’ corruption and financial mismanagement worsen in the absence of watchdogs.” Such is the history of the Sun-News and the city for many years.
As the Sun-News no longer serves as a watchdog, so incompetence and corruption in city government has grown. No one was surprised, much less outraged, that a moribund paper with no editorial voice said nothing about a wasted three-quarters of a million dollars on a long-running, SNAFU’d, public works flood control project. Or said nothing when former Police Chief Miguel Dominguez tried to deceive the public about Officer Jared Gosper’s murder of Sra. Amelia Baca. Its silence serves incompetence, corruption, wasted tax dollars, dishonesty, police killings, and more It is not a free press serving the public. It is a bought-and-paid-for rag mainly serving city officials, hobbyists, sports fans, and its corporate owners, whose concerns are private profits, not public service.
Earlier this year, the Sun-News offered a 3-month digital subscription for $1.00. I tried it, but I did not get my money’s worth. So I discontinued my subscription. Then, the paper offered a 'til-the-end-of-the-year digital subscription for $1.00. No thanks. My only wish is that I could cancel my subscription in protest, but I have already done that.
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