Report: Anschutz Explores Resurrecting Rocky Mountain News

DENVER (AP/CBS4) - Billionaire investor Philip Anschutz is exploring the possibility of resurrecting the Rocky Mountain News, a daily newspaper in Denver that was shuttered in 2009 after nearly 150 years in operation, according to a newspaper report.

The Denver Business Journal was the first to report Tuesday that Anschutz' Clarity Media Group has posted a prototype newspaper online and is researching the feasibility of once again publishing the Rocky. E.W. Scripps Co. closed the newspaper in 2009, citing losses that reached $16 million the previous year.

John Temple, who was the Rocky's editor, president and publisher when the paper closed, said Anschutz needs to try something new if he wants to revitalize the Rocky.

"The Rocky cannot be what it was," he said. "It has to be something new if he's going to restore it. And my only hope would be that if the decision is made to restore the title, that it's done with a sense of spirit and dignity, and it's not (to) pretend to just go back to the old days but to take the attitude and approach of the Rocky and create something new."

Ryan McKibben, president and CEO of Clarity, tells the Denver Business Journal that readers can comment on the prototype, but no decision has been made to republish the Rocky. He says Anschutz owns the rights to use the newspaper's nameplate, its Internet address and other "intellectual property."

LINK: RockyMountainNews.com

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