'Examiner' Newspapers Owner Anschutz Buys 'Weekly Standard' From Murdoch

By: E&P Staff In June, Philip Anschutz, the Colorado billionaire who launched the Examiner group of free targeted dailies, quietly bought The Weekly Standard from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., The New York Times reported Monday.

The price was about $1 million, the Times reported in the article by business writer Tim Arango.

In Anschutz, Murdoch found an ideologically compatible buyer for the politically conservative magazine. The Times reported that its top editors William Kristol and Fred Barnes have been told by Anschutz not to change the magazine's politics.

Since News Corp. launched the magazine in 1995, it has never been profitable. But that might change, a spokesman for Anschutz suggested to the Times.

"We don't purchase assets with the intention that they won't become profitable," the spokesman, Jim Monaghan, said.