Part I of a series: allied newspapers, warring newsrooms.

• Author: Schwab, Robert
• Position: Part 1

FIVE YEARS INTO THE JOINT OPERATING AGREEMENT THAT FUSED THE DENVER POST AND ROCKY MOUNTAIN NEWS AT THE WALLET BUT KEPT THEIR EDITORIAL VOICES SEPARATE, THE RESULTS ARE DECIDEDLY MIXED. THE NEWSPAPER WAR MAY BE OVER, BUT EMERGING ELECTRONIC MEDIA HAVE CREATED NEW BATTLEFIELDS BY MAKING READERS AND ADVERTISERS AN EVER-MORE ELUSIVE TARGET.

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The four newspaper executives sat elbow-to-elbow in a conference room at the University of Denver, their pre-panel fidgeting the only sign of a collective discomfort on this night in January. Dean Singleton, Kirk MacDonald and Greg Moore seemed comfortable enough with each other. John Temple, the fourth, seemed the odd man out. Temple is the editor and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News. The other three all share ties to The Denver Post. The two newspapers are Colorado's largest competing metro dailies, but five years ago they joined themselves at the wallet when their two parent companies, both major national media conglomerates, merged the business operations of the two competitors under a law that gives them an exemption from federal antitrust prosecution.

According to online encyclopedia Wikipedia, "the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970,... signed by President Richard Nixon, authorized the formation of joint operating agreements among separate competing newspaper operations within the same market area." The law was designed to save separate newspaper editorial voices in a community where one newspaper was failing. The Post and the Rocky entered into their business arrangement in 2001, and the four executives had been invited by the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and the University of Denver to discuss the success of the joint operating agreement, which in the newspaper trade is called a "JOA."

"I think five years later," said Singleton, who is publisher of The Post, "looking back, I'm very comfortable that we kept our promise." That promise was to keep both newspapers' editorial functions--their reporting, editing, writing, photography, graphics, coverage and display--separate and distinct from each other, while the other operations of the two businesses linked up to cut costs and make money. Singleton and Temple have kept the money-making part of the promise, for sure. In fact, last month, the newspapers made a change that signals they want to try to make even more money out of their agreement. It's a decision that has left at least a couple of Colorado business owners who advertise with the Denver Newspaper Agency, the operating company for the two newspapers under the JOA, a bit wary of what might come next.

John Temple, as editor and publisher of the Rocky, is quickly becoming an icon for both the tough hunt for money and new advertisers in print and online by the newspapers; and for the journalistic excellence that the JOA was meant to preserve. The Rocky was named a winner of two Pulitzer prizes in April, the highest honor in journalism. At the forum in January, Temple indicated that kind of work might not have been possible for the newspaper had the JOA not intervened to assure the Rocky's financial survival. But that's also why Temple appeared as the odd man out on that night in January.

"I hated it," he told the audience, referring to the JOA and the Rocky's forced dropping of its Sunday edition. But Temple also said he had come to respect the merger of business operations as an opportunity for his own newspaper to shine under the JOA umbrella. He has certainly fulfilled that promise. The Pulitzers and a shortlived and slight increase in...