MEDIA MAGNET

Last month, the Wall Street Journal immortalized Jim Gibbons with one of its trademark ink dot portraits.

Unfortunately for Gibbons, the story that went with it was nothing he would want to clip out and add to his scrapbook.

Despite pleas for privacy, the governor and his mansion-sized marital problems have gone global.

In the last week alone, the ongoing saga has spurred stories in People Magazine and two major daily newspapers in London.

The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Houston Chronicle, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Kansas City Star, and the Deseret Morning News of Salt Lake City also have carried news of the governor's alleged affair and pending divorce.

The widening coverage comes as no surprise to one man who has made a career out of gleefully spreading gossip.

"In the world of clean, healthy gossip, if you're a chef this has all the ingredients," said celebrity maven and Las Vegas resident Robin Leach. "It's got everything: sex, lust, avarice and a government official to boot."

He expects the frenzy to intensify in the wake of Tuesday's revelation that Gibbons used his state-issued phone to send more than 860 text messages in six weeks to another man's wife.

"This guy must own the speed championship title. He must be the fastest texter in the world," Leach said. "You couldn't write this stuff. A script writer in Hollywood wouldn't touch it because no one would believe it."

But is this a bigger story across the country and around the world simply because it is happening in Nevada?

State Archivist Guy Rocha isn't so sure.

Nevada and its laissez faire ideas about marriage, divorce, gambling and prostitution might give coverage "a little boost," Rocha said, but a story like this would still make news "even in Bismarck, North Dakota."

Leach agreed.

"If this had happened in Britain to the village priest or the local mayor, it would have been front page news everywhere," he said.

Even so, few visiting reporters have missed the opportunity to dust off old Nevada stereotypes to color their tales of Jim and Dawn. In its way, this is the divorce that spawned a thousand bad leads.

The Times of London printed a story on Wednesday that began with references to legal brothels and weddings conducted by "fat men in white spandex jumpsuits."

While setting the stage for CNN's coverage last week, anchor Campbell Brown couldn't help herself. "Like bad Vegas odds," Brown said, "are the chips down for the governor?"

So many Las Vegas clichés have been tossed around by invading paratroopers from the press that some of the stories have begun to sound recycled.

People magazine's story begins, "Home of the quickie wedding, Nevada is a paradise for tacky nuptials."

The account in the London newspaper The Independent opens with a description of the Silver State as "home of the quickie wedding and paradise for tacky nuptials."

Both stories came out last week.

A Washington, D.C., political newspaper might have been the first publication to pick up on the Gibbons saga outside Nevada.

In early March, The Hill published an account of the governor's first public acknowledgement that he and his wife were headed for divorce. The headline was, "Public display of heartbreak."

Unfortunately for the governor and those who believe his private affairs deserve to stay that way, the story proved to be the tip of an inky iceberg that grows larger and colder by the day.

In its report last week, the Times of London explained how, until recently, Dawn Gibbons has stood by her husband, even in 2006 when he was accused of drunkenly groping a woman "in a car park," whatever that is.

The couple's messy divorce proceedings, the newspaper said, have sparked "a nationwide scandal that has provoked condescending sniggers from as far away as New York."

For its coverage, The New York Times turned to regular freelancer and Las Vegas Weekly columnist Steve Friess, who described the governor's marital problems as "a titillating sideshow" to the state's ongoing budget woes.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the messy divorce proceedings have transfixed Nevada residents "like a daytime soap opera."

As staff writer Ashley Powers put it, Gibbons "lacks the looks and charm of a (San Francisco Mayor) Gavin Newsom or (Los Angeles Mayor) Antonio Villaraigosa" but is still being "tailed like a club-hopping starlet."

Even readers from outside of Nevada have gotten in on the act.

During the brief battle over who should get to live in the Governor's Mansion in Carson City, the State Journal-Register in Springfield, Ill., published a pair of letters to the editor offering Gibbons an alternate place to crash.

"It so happens that in Illinois we have a vacant governor's mansion," wrote Journal-Register reader Lou Schreiter. "Could we possibly make a deal to rent it out and perhaps bring in a little revenue?"

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has opted not to live at the state mansion in Springfield, a choice that sparked controversy last summer when he took daily flights to and from Chicago during a fight over the state budget.

There is good news for Gibbons. Outside interest in his troubled marriage is unlikely to last very long. Such things rarely do, Rocha said.

"This is not exclusive to Nevada or this couple. It's a sign of the times. In today's society, scandal is hard news," he said. "If this were happening in Tallahassee, all eyes would be on Florida."

Consider the wall-to-wall coverage of recent scandals involving former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Idaho Sen. Larry Craig.

Simply put, Rocha said, "It's our turn in the barrel."

Contact reporter Henry Brean at hbrean @reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0350.