It has been nearly three weeks since the last ever edition of the Rocky Mountain News, and yesterday came the announcement that former staff are set to launch an online news publication on May 4th - provided they get 50,000 subscriptions before April 23rd. InDenverTimes.com is backed by three local entrepreneurs, Brad Gray, Kevin Preblud and Benjamin Ray. The three would give no details on how much they have invested in the venture, although Ray explained that the majority of the budget would be used on the staff, which will consist of 30 former News writers, editors and a cartoonist.

In Denver Times co-founder Preblud believes that "Great journalism can still be good business," and despite the three backers explaining that they had not considered buying the news, they said that they couldn't imagine the newspaper dying completely. Currently, many of the future In Denver Times employees are contributing to I Want My Rocky, which was started by Rocky staff members after Scripps announced its intention to sell the publication in December. Steve Foster, one of the I Want My Rocky contributors, and co-founder of Inside the Rockies will run the site. The news came on the same day that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer finally confirmed its online-only future, and joins a wealth of other online start-up ventures following newspaper job cuts and closures.

Source: Associated Press