Taking It to the Editorial Page   

Editorialists across the country this summer used the Chandra Levy disappearance as a springboard for media criticism and analysis. In Las Vegas, rival editors used it as an excuse to take personal potshots at one another.

Thomas Mitchell, editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, admits provoking his cross-town competitor and joint operating agreement partner, Las Vegas Sun Editor Brian Greenspun. "Every once in a while I will poke a stick through the fence and listen to the little dog yap," Mitchell says.

The "stick," in this case, was a July 15 column by Mitchell arguing that Levy and her relationship with Rep. Gary Condit is a legitimate news story. "It is not just about sex. It is about character, integrity, abuse of power, breaking of oaths, deceit and, yes, ultimately a mysterious and probably tragic disappearance," Mitchell wrote.

Mitchell contrasted his position with those expressed in a paper he purposely misidentified as "the Henderson Sun"--a reference to the Sun's headquarters in the affluent suburb of Henderson.

As a family-owned afternoon paper, the Sun fights an uphill battle against the Review-Journal, a morning paper owned by the Donrey Media Group. Interestingly, even though Las Vegas remains in many ways a small town, the two editors say they have only seen each other once or twice in the 12 years since Mitchell took over.

In any case, Mitchell's jab set Greenspun off. "You don't let a guy kick you and not kick him back," Greenspun says.

In his July 22 column, the editor referred to his competitor as "the R-J's Martha Mitchell, I mean Tom Mitchell" and said his competitor "wouldn't know news if it hit him in the face."

Greenspun concluded with a final scold: "Call it what it is, Tom. And don't use words like character and integrity to justify your actions. You haven't a clue what they mean."

Because the JOA calls for combined weekend editions, Greenspun's column appeared a few sections away from Mitchell's regular Sunday column.

Mitchell calls Greenspun's latest column "a blathering diatribe," but says he has no interest in returning fire at this point.

As for Greenspun, he acknowledges that although the exchange is probably too "inside baseball" to matter much to readers, it illustrates an important point: "At the end of the day," he says, "it shows both newspapers are 100 percent editorially independent."

That's for sure.