Small Victories

Reporters are rarely sympathetic figures, owing to all those bothersome questions, fake news conspiracy projects and sketchy table manners. On occasion, however, their fellow citizens treat them charitably, if not equitably. That those calls sometimes are made posthumously isn’t ideal, but free buffet vouchers probably aren’t in the cards. 

Jeff German

You may have seen the news item recently that a former Las Vegas politician and administrator was convicted of murdering a local investigative reporter in Sept. 2022. Longtime Las Vegas Review-Journal snoop Jeff German was stabbed to death outside his home after he wrote stories detailing the shady and shoddy conduct of Robert Telles, who oversaw a county administrative office at the time. We wrote about the murder in this space when it occurred because it was both alarming and peculiar. Reporters getting iced for doing their jobs is an outrage and an act more associated with authoritarian or criminal settings. 

German covered corruption and organized crime and scandal in Vegas for more than three decades. But it was a disgraced low-level bureaucrat who killed him, a jury ruled, which may be even more jarring. It’s like handling rattlesnakes your entire life and being taken out by a mosquito bite. Prosecutors produced surveillance video and DNA and physical evidence that put Telles near German’s home the morning of the murder, including parts of a disguise that were found cut up later at Telles’s home. 

Telles, for his part, maintained his innocence and wove a tale that a shadowy group that included former colleagues and a local real estate company hired a hit man and then framed him because he planned to make unpopular changes within his office. Telles’s attorney stopped short of peddling that theory and argued instead that there was insufficient evidence to convict. The jury disagreed, and Telles, 47, was sentenced to life in prison with possibility of parole after 20 years. 

Review-Journal executive editor Glenn Cook in a statement called the verdict “a measure of justice” for German and for all murdered journalists, which it is. Clark County District Attorney Steve Wolfson said that the verdict sends the message that “any attempts to silence the media or to silence or intimidate a journalist will not be tolerated,” which sounds good but is less enforceable. 

The truth is that reporters and journalists are no more protected or exempt from violence or bad actors than anyone else. This is as it should be, though the Framers thought enough of a free press to highlight it in Constitutional Amendment Uno. German was the only journalist killed in the U.S. in 2022, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, though at least 67 journalists were killed worldwide that year, most in war zones and while reporting on crime, corruption and authoritarian regimes. Reporters don’t ask for special treatment, only basic courtesy and an acknowledgement that their jobs are at times difficult and necessary. An occasional open bar would be nice, as well.

It's Murder Out There for Reporters

There are numerous ways to get snuffed in Las Vegas: corruption, The Mob, questionable acquaintances, scorching heat, all the vices you can think of and some you can’t. However, I wouldn’t have guessed “being a reporter investigating a low-level bureaucrat.” 

Jeff German

As the site’s media grump, this hits close to home and troubles me. You may have heard, but Jeff
German, a Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter, was stabbed to death outside his home on Sept. 2. Robert Telles, a Clark County public administrator, is charged with murder. 

German had written several stories about Telles, detailing mismanagement of his office. Subordinates alleged that he created a toxic work environment and carried on an inappropriate relationship with a female staffer, complete with a videotape of a rendezvous between the two of them in the back seat of her car at a parking garage. He denied the allegations and tried to explain away the car meeting as innocent. 

Telles was first elected to the office in 2018, but lost his bid for re-election in a June primary. He blamed the newspaper stories for his loss. Vegas police almost immediately identified him as a “person of interest” in its investigation. Surveillance video of a car registered to his wife near German’s home on the day of the killing and DNA evidence found on German linked Telles to the scene and prompted officials to charge him with murder. 

German’s colleagues said that he didn’t view Telles as dangerous. After all, German had been with the paper for 40 years and investigated crooks and mobsters and gang members and very bad people – lots of folks more likely to threaten and harm those that got in their way – and was never deterred. 

The Telles pieces were fairly low on the investigative food chain. No crimes, no graft; just incompetence and poor management by a county administrator with no criminal record. And yet, here we are. Review-Journal executive editor Glenn Cook told the Washington Post’s Erik Wemple: “It’s terrifying for the staff to understand that this is possible, and it is alarming to journalists everywhere that the person that you would least expect to be capable of something like this actually might be.” 

 

Journalists are under attack around the world – 1,125 killed since 2000, and 552 in the past decade, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Most of those, though, were in war zones or authoritarian countries, where simply stating facts can get reporters threatened, jailed or killed. 

The U.S. still has among the free-est of free presses. Only 10 journalists in the U.S. have been killed since 2000, according to the CPJ. Four of those were in June 2018 during an assault at the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md., that killed a total of five. 

Reuters' Danish Siddiqui was killed in
Afghanistan in 2021

However, those stats don’t begin to tell the story of reporter harassment. Shuttering newspapers and shedding staff provide those with power and status the chance to act with impunity or silence dissenting voices. Increasingly contentious social discourse fuels conflict. Social media provides a cloak of anonymity for those affected or who may simply disagree. I would argue that there’s also a through line from a certain former POTUS – Mr. Fake News and the Press is the Enemy of the People – to those who feel emboldened to attack reporters. 

German’s murder isn’t a template and that’s what makes it chilling. There’s inherent danger for reporters covering a shooting war or poking about the affairs of criminals and despots and the powerful. But a county government official seeking retribution, or an aggrieved citizen shooting up an Annapolis newsroom because of a story that described his harassment of a high school acquaintance are another level. Reporting has plenty of unique challenges in the best of times, which this isn’t. Reporters now must be even more attuned to threats and the possibility of violence from anyone who fancies themselves a victim.