The Nevada Policy Research Institute appears to have a direct line into the Review-Journal’s newsroom. The non-profit institute, which promotes “free market” principles in core areas of education and fiscal policy, gets the bulk of its media hits in the Review-Journal.

There’s certainly value to providing information and NPRI’s perspective to news sources. Local media outlets can certainly tap NPRI’s reports and analysts for this perspective. But it appears the Review-Journal has grown dependent on NPRI as a source.

And that's where the fine line between having a source for analysis and having a source that controls the news can easily be eroded. NPRI is a private think tank funded in part, by the Libertarian Cato Institute and by private foundations like the Roe Foundation that also donate to the Heritage Foundation and other conservative institutes.

Most of its events are held at the Venetian, where Weidner worked for Sheldon Adelson, the major financial supporter of Freedom Watch and other right-wing advertising outlets. Recently both Karl Rove and George W. Bush were the speakers at NPRI’s gala fund-raising events.

NPRI is proud to tout its appearances in local and national media, and it’s clear from these recent clips that the local think tank should call itself a think thank to the RJ.

So far in 2009, NPRI has been in Review-Journal articles 40 times and counting. During the same period, NPRI got 5 hits in the Reno Gazette Journal and 13 hits in the Sun. This doesn't include the 11 submissions by NPRI staff that the RJ and its printed so far in 2009. In fact, if the RJ didn't exist, NPRI would have a hard time justifying its staff. NPRI commentaries appeared four times in the Reno Gazette Journal and once in the Elko Daily Free Press.