The Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Las Vegas Sun are the last newspapers in the US operating under a “joint operating agreement” model introduced in 1970.

The Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970 introduced competition law exemptions to effectively allow two competing newspapers to combine their business operations while maintaining separate newsrooms.

Since 1989, the Review-Journal has printed the Sun and bundled it with its own newspapers – latterly, from 2005, as a daily insert.

However, the owners of the Review-Journal have sought since 2019 to end the arrangement, which is now the last of its kind in the US.

The matter is the subject of ongoing litigation, but the expiry of a preliminary injunction allowed the Review-Journal to last week stop printing the Sun.

In an editorial, the Review-Journal said the arrangement was no longer lawful and attacked the quality of journalism in the Sun.

The Sun – now unavailable in print for the first time since 1950 – has promised to fight back in the courts and reinstate the deal.