A lot of people in Las Vegas lament the local media. They say Las Vegans deserve a better quality of media, and that the newspapers and television stations that serve the valley — including CityLife, which we at Various Things & Stuff edit — are simply not as sophisticated as their counterparts in other places.

While we don’t entirely agree, we simply cannot dismiss that argument out of hand. And a good example developed this week. Here’s the headline, subhead and first couple of paragraphs of a Thursday Review-Journal story about Republican presidential candidate and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani:

Headline: Giuliani has front-runner aura

Subhead: GOP presidential candidate draws crowds of admirers in Las Vegas

Story: "People live love Rudy Giuliani.

"That was obvious Wednesday as the former New York City mayor and current Republican presidential front-runner struggled to maneuver through a throng of people and cameras at a Las Vegas Target store where he was making a brief shoppnig trip and campaign stop.

"They held out things for him to sign: Political fliers. Books. A baseball. Yankees hats. NYPD hats. FDNY hats. A girl’s crayon drawing of an American flag on looseleaf paper. One woman even held out her checkbook."

OK, you get the idea. It was a pretty nice story that didn’t really go into much detail about anything negative about the former mayor, aside from his three marriages and the fact that he doesn’t really have a firm stance against Yucca Mountain. Oh, and that he can’t pronounce the last name of Elie Wiesel.

Now, for comparison’s sake, let’s take a look at a story from an elite liberal newspaper in New York City, called the New York Times. Just by coincidence, it’s also about Giuliani and is from today’s paper:

Headline: Testimony by Giuliani Indicates He Was Briefed on Kerik in ‘00

Subhead: None

Story: "Rudolph W. Giuliani told a grand jury that his former chief investigator remembered having briefed him on some aspects of Bernard B. Kerik’s relationship with a company suspected of ties to organized crime before Mr. Kerik’s appointment as New York City police commissioner, according to court records.

"Mr. Giuliani, testifying last year under oath before a Bronx grand jury investigating Mr. Kerik, said he had no memory of the briefing, but he did not dispute that it had taken place, according to a transcript of his testimony.

"Mr. Giuliani’s testimony amounts to a significantly new version of what information was probably before him in the summer of 2000 as he was debating Mr. Kerik’s appointment as the city’s top law enforcement officer. Mr. Giuliani had previously said that he had never been told of Mr. Kerik’s entanglement with the company before promoting him to the police job or later supporting his failed bid to be the nation’s homeland security secretary."

You know, we really do see a difference in elite liberal media and the media of the heartland!

Now before anybody starts objecting, we will fully admit that it’s not fair to compare the two stories head-to-head. The Review-Journal didn’t have the information that the Times uncovered for today’s editions when it wrote its piece. But the Times seems somehow less inclined to — oh, how would one say it? — lionize, worship, be enthralled by, embrace or perhaps make sweet love to Giuliani down by the fire. Yes, that’s how we’d say it.

Then again, the Times is an elite lefty rag that knows a lot more about Giuliani, having covered him for years up to and including on Sept. 11, 2001. When their reporters come to our town, they tend to write nice pieces about our mayor, like its March 5 piece about Oscar Goodman’s how-to-make-a-martini class at the Community College of Southern Nevada. (Oh, but then again, so did the R-J. OK, bad example.)

Anyway, if you’re one of those people who just can’t abide the differences between heartland and elite media, we may have the solution for you.