By Dennis Huspeni
Colorado Springs Gazette Editor Joe Hight braved the snow, a three hour commute from the Springs to Denver and got his iPhone rolled over by a car on Glenarm Place on his way to deliver an outstanding Fireside Chat at the Denver Press Club Feb. 20.

Hight started by updating the 11 participants how he got from The Oklahoman/NewsOK.com to become the new editor of Colorado’s second-largest paper in December. (Clarity Media Group bought the Gazette in November. It’s a business operated by Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz.)

“I saw it as a great opportunity and I plan to stay awhile,” Hight said.

Hight established 30 goals for the Gazette and began implementing them immediately, including: a redesign; boosting the paper’s size 32 pages, adding new features and hiring more staff – including many former Gazette employees who had been laid off.

“We had more than 200 applications for the four open reporter positions,” Hight said.

The decision to have the paper printed in Denver by the same plant that prints The Denver Post was not taken lightly, with the jobs of the longtime press workers on the line, he said. But ultimately finances and the quality of the printed product (the Gazette’s presses had needed replacing for more than two decades) won out. The move might also allow the Gazette operations to move into a smaller footprint than the building with the presses at 30 S. Prospect.

“Phil Anschutz is a businessman first, but he’s also got a passion for newspapers,” Hight said. “He’s seen how they affect the community.”

Since Anschutz also owns the Broadmoor, questions were raised about the paper’s coverage of one of the Springs’ largest employers.
“We’ll cover it like any other business, fairly and objectively,” Hight said.

Improvements are also being made to the website, like bringing full control back from Egypt – where it had been outsourced by the previous owners.

“There’s a lot of potential for us with the increasing use of mobile devices to view news,” Hight said.