Jack Ryan, Former Ill. Senate Candidate, to Start His Own Paper

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By: E&P Staff Former U.S. Senate candidate Jack Ryan has confirmed that he is getting into the newspaper business -- seven months after his political ambitions were derailed by a scandal that came to light because of a newspaper.

Ryan won the Illinois Republican primary election for U.S. senator last March, but he abandoned the race three months later when the Chicago Tribune and the ABC owned-and-operated TV station WLS successfully argued in court to unseal records relating to his divorce from the actress Jeri Lynn Ryan. Transcripts from a child custody hearing revealed his ex-wife accused Ryan of pressuring him to have sex at sex clubs in Europe. He denied the accusation.

At a village board hearing in Homer Glen Tuesday, Ryan said he would launch a weekly newspaper called The Homerian next month, according to a report in today's Chicago Tribune written by Jody Paige with contributions from Liam Ford. Ryan said the 16-page paper would be mailed to all of the approximately 22,000 households in the village, which is only three years old.

Ryan indicated the paper would not be heavily political, but instead will focus on the good in Homer Glen. "The theme of the paper will be to build community," he said, according to the Tribune.

The conservative political newsletter The Illinois Leader, citing anonymous sources, first reported that Ryan, a wealthy former investment banker, planned to get into the newspaper business. When Ryan dropped out of the senate race, Illinois Republican Party leaders scrambled for a replacement, finally settling on Alan Keyes, the conservative commentator from Maryland. He lost in a landslide to Democrat Barack Obama.

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