Longtime Las Vegas Journalist Norm Clarke Passes Away

By Scott Roeben, on March 25 2025
3 min read 7 comments
Las Vegas

Our friend and legendary Las Vegas journalist Norm Clarke has died and we don’t really know how to talk about it. John Katsilometes did a better job than we could of sharing Clarke’s background and accomplishments, so maybe read that story.

Clarke, easily recognized in any crowd due to his eye patch, wrote the “Vegas Confidential” column for the Las Vegas Review-Journal for 17 years. He fought prostate cancer for 16 of those years. Our final text from Norm Clarke was Feb. 22, 2025. He said he wanted to take us to lunch after he got back from spring training in Arizona. He entered hospice care on March 12, 2025 after injuring his hip. He died March 20, 2025 at Nathan Adelson Hospice in Las Vegas, at 82.

Suffice to say that without Norm Clarke, there would be no Vital Vegas, at least not in its current iteration. Clarke was the king of Las Vegas scoop and celebrity gossip before those things were things. Clarke broke the biggest Vegas stories, but with class and modesty (unlike us). He was also one of the nicest guys in the world.

We took this photo of Norm on July 22, 2011 at a rally where Caesars Entertainment touted its “no resort fees” stance. How we laughed and laughed.

Prior to his run as our town’s top columnist, Clarke grew up in Montana and covered sports in Denver.

Like those of us who tell the truth in our reporting, Clarke wasn’t universally beloved, but even his haters respected his work ethic and dedication to peeking through the curtain of the notoriously guarded world of Las Vegas entertainment.

Clarke was by far the most connected journalist in Las Vegas until us, with sources everywhere. He didn’t have the benefit of social media, where it’s much easier to get tips.

We weren’t part of Clarke’s inner circle of friends, but we had a special connection which led to interviewing him for our podcast in 2017. It’s tough for us to listen to this interview at the moment, but you should. Clarke was all heart and his good humor shines through.

In this interview, among other things, we hear about how Clarke lost his right eye in a childhood accident involving suspenders.

 

Clarke’s eye patch was a great hook, like Carrot Top’s hair or Piff’s dragon costume or our mom jeans.

A couple of weeks ago, Clarke reached out to ask if we’d contribute a blurb for his book, “The Power of the Patch.”

Through whatever miracle, Clarke’s book was delivered in time for him to see the finished product before his death. We were pretty much catatonic seeing he’d used our quote on the book’s cover, probably just to annoy Johnny Kats.

Miss you, Norm.

Unfortunately, the book won’t be made available to the public, but will be donated to college journalism programs. We sincerely hope to be designated a college journalism program for the purposes of getting one of these books.

As the quote says, Clarke set an incredibly high bar for others doing what he did so masterfully for so many years.

His style of journalism is what we aspire to. It pokes holes in the facade and refuses to just regurgitate the public relations narrative. Clarke had a world-class bullshit detector, invaluable in digging up what other outlets miss or ignore.

Most Las Vegas journalists are forced to play the P.R. game for fear of losing access. Norm Clarke never seemed to care all that much about what bridges might be burned in the pursuit of truth and good scoop. We live and work by that philosophy every day.

Norm was a bigtime sports fan, we liked him despite his flaws.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal took a nosedive after it was purchased by Sheldon Adelson in 2015. All the experienced writers (Clarke was pushed out in 2016) and editors jumped ship, and it shows.

Today, the Las Vegas Review-Journal spends its time poring over social media, treating accounts like ours as a free news feed.

Norm Clarke was the last of his breed, try as we might to fill those giant shoes.

There were subtle clues as to how much we admired Norm Clarke. He distributed eye patches at his 80th birthday party, we will always cherish ours.

Norm Clarke inspired us in so many ways, personally and professionally. Every day we strive to ferret out the scoop and deliver it with whatever integrity and heart we can muster, something that came so naturally to Norm.

And while it wasn’t his chosen vehicle, Norm loved snark and told us so, so there.

Our sincere condolences go out to his friends and family. We will never see his like again.