Ethics, morals, love, respect and integrity.” That’s the five-part code of honor Nik Richie expects his new employees, and their followers, to abide by when his company launches as the clock strikes midnight the morning of Sunday, September 4.
“Those are our standard guidelines, and we’re hoping that transcends to the public and all our readers,” Richie, the CEO of new media entity FACTZ, explains. “And if we can all stand by our code, then at least we can sleep at night.”
Richie, best known for launching onetime Scottsdale, Arizona-based gossip website TheDirty.com, has teamed with a familiar Nevada name on the endeavor: businessman Stephen J. Cloobeck, founder and former chairman of the Diamond Resorts timeshare company and current chairman of the Nevada Athletic Commission.
Richie says they have already hired a staff of 15, a “dream team” that includes employees with previous experience at TMZ, Us Weekly and beyond. That crew will celebrate the kickoff of website FACTZ.com and its mobile app during a party at Zouk Nightclub at Resorts World on September 4.
So what is FACTZ, and what does it hope to accomplish? Las Vegas Weekly caught up with Richie by phone on August 25 to get some specifics. The interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
What made you decide to do this? A couple of factors. One, I met with Stephen, a strong figure who’s been through the trenches and come out on top. He told me about a lot of the different things that he’s done with Harry Reid in terms of [renaming] the airport and for the future of the community, and it was inspiring, because that’s what I’ve been trying to do my whole life with TheDirty—spread awareness to wake people up from the cons, the frauds and the grifters.
[And second,] FACTZ came about because we’re sick and tired of this divide between the red and the blue, just attacking each other and no one getting anywhere. The reality is, there’s a purple party, a middle, and it’s like 90% of us. There’s so much fake news, and no one knows who to trust. So we said, let’s put all the facts out there and see where people lie.
So what will FACTZ offer? It’s going to be an app, a social media network, a first-of-its-kind hybrid between, for example, TMZ, where it’s giving you breaking news—lifestyle, political perspectives, celebrities—but also [operating] in the Gen Z world of the influencers. The reality is, people are living for “likes,” so we need to showcase that. We’re doing a hybrid model; much like [Elon] Musk has done in the vehicle world, we want to do it in the media world, like an Instagram but also TMZ.
Will the stories be local in nature? We’re gonna start with Las Vegas and branch it out. I made a name for myself in Scottsdale and Newport Beach [California], but Stephen andI know the players in Las Vegas, so we’re gonna have insider stuff that we can bring to light.
What’s an example of the sort of story you see FACTZ running? It’s such a wide range. We already have 100 stories in the can, everything from school teachers who are hiding information from their students about their pasts to hotel and nightclub owners not following liquor-code and gaming-commission rules to the sheriff, [Joe] Lombardo, who’s basically acting like the holy Christ of Las Vegas.
I want to create what I did with TheDirty, where we have anonymous heroes coming in and exposing the underbelly of society. If we’re able to fact-check and make calls, we can put these stories on the front page.
What did you learn from TheDirty experience that can help steer you through this? The biggest thing I learned is [to have] no fear. I’ve been through 50 lawsuits, and I’ve won all 50. It doesn’t matter who my challenger is. As long as the law is with me and the court system works the way it’s supposed to, I know I’m in good standing.
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