Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
Atty. Gen. Janet Reno cleared the way Friday for the business merger of the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News, papers that had been locked in a costly, long-running circulation war.
Approval of the so-called joint operating agreement is designed to preserve two independent editorial voices in Denver, one of a dwindling number of cities that has competing dailies. Reno agreed with a Justice Department conclusion that continued operating losses would probably force the News, which reported losing $123 million in the 1990s, to close unless a joint agreement was granted. As part of the 50-year agreement, each newspaper will publish separate editions daily and combined editions on Saturday and Sunday.
