Las Vegas Review-Journal Takes Hits from “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver”

By Scott Roeben, on August 08 2016
2 min read 28 comments
Las Vegas Las Vegas WTF

The Las Vegas Review-Journal and its owner Sheldon Adelson took some jabs on the most recent installment of HBO’s “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver.”

Host John Oliver devoted a portion of his Aug. 7, 2016 episode to the challenges facing the world of journalism, and broached the subject of problems arising from newspapers being owned by bajillionaires.

One of those bajillionaires, Sheldon Adelson, purchased the Las Vegas Review-Journal, and ever since there’s been an exodus of experienced reporters as well as concerns about the publication’s ability to cover stories related to Adelson’s business concerns.

Adelson Last Week Tonight
We would make a sharky comment about Sheldon Adelson were it not for the fact he currently employs more lawyers than China, France and Germany combined.

Sheldon Adelson is the Chairman and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp., which owns Venetian,
Palazzo and the Sands Expo and Convention Center in Las Vegas.

During the journalism segment, “Last Week Tonight” explains Adelson’s “businesses are at
the center of a lot of the stories the Review-Journal covers.”

John Oliver goes on to state, “There could not be a worse owner of a paper in Vegas than
Sheldon Adelson, with the possible exception of Cirque du Soleil. Because they wouldn’t
even give you a newspaper, you’d just have a fistful of glitter thrown in your face by a
90-pound man in a thong.”

Last Week Tonight Cirque
We are not aware of any Cirque show in Las Vegas that utilizes glitter, but let’s not get bogged down in details.

A highlight of the segment, though, is a satirical commercial for a “Spotlight”-inspired film. The piece shows a news team balancing hard-hitting news with Web-friendly fluff pieces that strive to get lots of clicks, “likes” and retweets. (A scenario, we should say, which plays itself out in local Las Vegas media daily.)

The mock movie trailer includes a review of the movie by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Last Week Tonight Review-Journal
Fun fact: Before appearing on SNL and in awful movies like “We’re the Millers,” Jason Sudeikis used to perform with Second City in Bugsy’s Celebrity Theater at Flamingo.

Here’s video of the segment on “Last Week Tonight.” Skip to 12:20 for the Vegas stuff.


While delivered with a humorous bent, the “Last Week Tonight” segment about the dilemma faced by newspapers made some thoughtful, nuanced points we didn’t entirely understand.

But we really enjoyed the part about the raccoon cat. Totally sharing it on Facebook.