Colorado biz journal being sold

The owners of the Colorado Springs Independent announced Monday that they are buying the Colorado Springs Business Journal.

Andrew Wineke and Rich Laden of the Colorado Springs Gazette report, “John Weiss, publisher of the Independent and head of the Publishing Corp. of Colorado Springs that is buying the Business Journal, said the papers would remain editorially independent, although he plans to look at consolidating back-office functions such as accounting.

“‘They have very different niches,’ Weiss said. ‘We see them as two standalone products.’

“Independent CEO Fran Zankowski and executive editor Ralph Routon will divide their time between the two papers, according to a press release on the sale, and Independent columnist John Hazlehurst will also write for the Business Journal, where he had a column for several years.

“Weiss said he’s told the Dolan Co., the Minneapolis-based owner of the Business Journal, for the past four years that he was  interested in buying the Business Journal and that Dolan finally agreed to sell. Terms of the deal, which is scheduled to close June 1, were not disclosed.

“The first order of business, Weiss said, will be to build the local content and infrastructure that Dolan had provided — to ‘de-Dolanize’ the Business Journal.