THE LAST STORY: The Murder of an Investigative Journalist in Las Vegas by Arthur Kane

Author:Arthur Kane [Kane, Arthur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: WildBlue Press
Published: 2024-04-29T00:00:00+00:00

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Top editors also wanted to expand German’s media portfolio. They assigned German to host the second season of the RJ’s podcast Mobbed Up, which took listeners through Las Vegas’ sordid history of organized crime. The Review-Journal had joined with The Mob Museum to produce a series of podcasts recounting the city’s organized crime founding and control. It was a good way to promote the museum and a revenue stream for the paper.

Podcasting was far outside German’s comfort zone, and he made it clear to Cook and his then-editor Rhonda Prast. German knew the material well, having lived through and written about much of the battle for Las Vegas that was covered in season two of the newspaper’s podcast. He just wasn’t confident in his broadcast skills.

“You’re going to be great at it,” Cook, the paper’s top editor, told him after giving him the assignment.

“I don’t know how to write for audio,” German responded. “I’m going to narrate this thing?”

German, after forty years in the business, realized it was an offer he couldn’t refuse. “All right, all right,” he would say, intoning that I will do it if you say so but I’m not really buying it.

German was paired up with Larry Mir, a tattooed and muscled senior technical director of digital to produce the podcast. Knowing their difference in age but not knowing German well at that point, Mir assumed that German would hate him for his inked arms. He assumed that working with German would be a pain in the ass. Nothing could have been farther from the truth as German took to podcasting like he did to reporting. Mir’s main direction was often about German’s tone or delivery, but after a couple of episodes, the veteran reporter had found another form of media where he excelled.

They connected early when Mir brought up the Binion murder case without knowing that German wrote a book about it. German brought him a signed copy of Murder in Sin City. The second season of Mobbed Up focused on many of the stories German covered, including about Judge Claiborne’s role in Vegas history. It also told the tale of how entertainer Wayne Newton and talk show host Johnny Carson battled to buy the mob-run Aladdin Hotel.

The biggest hassle for Mir in working with German was his chronic ignorance of technology. The series was taped during the COVID pandemic, so much of interviewing was done through video conferencing. Mir repeatedly had to help German set up Zoom and Google Meets conference calls as the simplest of technology often befuddled the elder journalist. Despite that, the two had a lot of laughs, like when the script required German to swear on the podcast.

“Ross recalls that his effort to get an interview with Guido Penosi in Beverly Hills became a moment of laughter during the trial. Penosi told him, ‘Fuck you,’” German would read multiple times because takes were disrupted by laughter that he got to say “fuck” in the podcast.

German told Mir that he was looking forward to the profanity, especially since the podcast included a disclaimer.

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