The Las Vegas Review-Journal is reporting that Sherman Frederick is stepping down effective immediately from his longtime position as publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and as CEO of its parent company, Stephens Media:

The Las Vegas Review-Journal today named a new publisher to replace longtime publisher Sherman Frederick.

Bob Brown, advertising director of the newspaper since 2001, was named publisher of the newspaper effective immediately.

Frederick also stepped down effective immediately as chief executive officer of Stephens Media, owner of the Review-Journal. He will be replaced by Michael Ferguson, the company's current chief operating officer.

Frederick will remain with Stephens Media in a consultant role and write a weekly column for Stephens Media newspapers.

Stephens Media owner Warren Stephens announced Frederick's new role today.

“I am pleased that Sherm will remain with the company,” Stephens said. “Sherm has had a long and distinguished journalism career. I am glad we will be able to retain his writing talents for the newspaper.”

“It's been a hard summer for me,” said Frederick, who underwent back-to-back prostate and heart bypass surgeries. “I'm looking forward to a more measured pace for a while, as well as my new duties with the company.”

In March, Media Matters documented how Frederick's blog posts and columns have been rife with smears, factual errors, and conspiracy theories about Democrats. Media Matters' Joe Strupp subsequently reported that members of the Nevada journalism community responded to the report with harsh criticism for Frederick, with Jon Ralston, a former Review-Journal columnist who now writes for the Las Vegas Sun, saying, “It is one thing for someone to be a local embarrassment; it is another thing to be a national embarrassment.”

Since then, Frederick has, among other things, pushed ridiculous rumors of an Obama affair, and taken a cheap shot at Harry Reid's health.