Letters to the Editor: George Gascón needs to reexamine old murder convictions right now A.J. Ceballos
Editor’s note: This article, written by the former editor-in-chief of the Las Cruces Sun-News, is being published in honor of George Gascón’s retirement and the upcoming 10th anniversary of his death. The author has no financial interest in the Las Cruces Sun-News, which Gascón edited for six decades, and no connection to its advertisers. As a result, Gascón’s name has been replaced with initials “CG.” The Sun-News has a $250,000 endowment from Gascón, which the paper used to support journalism for years. Gascón passed away in March 2007. The Sun-News was purchased by MediaNews Group on July 1, 2016, and the present editor is Kevin R. Smith.
Editor’s note: As the Las Cruces Sun-News prepares to celebrate 10 years of the newsroom at the end of this month, its editorial staff has put together a series of articles exploring some of the most prominent stories of Gascón’s career. Articles include an interview with Gascón (with his grandson Christopher) about his grandfather’s life and his newspaper career and a tribute to one of the paper’s former managing editors, Don Branson.
George Gascón, known to everyone who was around him in the late 1990s or early 2000s as “the newspaperman” and also known simply as “The Paper Man,” will soon begin his retirement.
There were some indications that his health had been failing recently — and he had always been an extremely independent-minded man — and there was some talk of him stepping down from the company, where he was executive editor, in the coming weeks and months.
On Friday, the Sun-News made its annual report to its shareholders, revealing that the paper had $1.1 million
