DENVER -- A group of former Rocky Mountain News reporters and editors on Monday announced a new effort to deliver news online.

The Web site InDenverTimes.com is a venture created by a group of 30 former Rocky journalists and three entrepreneurs who claim they will reinvent the local newspaper model.

The group says they will deliver real-time local online news backed by a 150-year tradition of distinguished reporting and editing.

The group needs 50,000 people to pledge to pay $4.99 a month, or 16 cents a day, to support the venture. The site would offer some news free but readers who buy three-, six- or 12-month subscriptions with sliding rates would get extra content, including columns, interactive features, feeds to mobile devices and customizable content. A year's subscription would be $59.88.

If the group meets that goal by April 23, the 150-year anniversary of the Rocky Mountain News, InDenver Times will launch on May 4.

"Journalism is not free, it's expensive. Good journalism is very expensive and we need the people of this community to be vested behind this idea, and to help pay for that quality journalism," said Kevin Preblud, with InDenver Times.

"It's an investment, one worth $4.99 a month to encourage a bold, creative effort to continue a vision based on a 150-year Denver tradition," the site says.

The group says it does not have a backup plan if 50,000 people don't sign up. They say they are very confident that in the Denver area, where people are hungry for their news, that they will find 50,000 subscribers willing to support the online paper.

The E.W. Scripps Co. last month shut down the nearly 150-year-old News, citing mounting losses.

In the three weeks since the newspaper folded, the journalists have been writing news and entertainment for a Web site called iwantmyrocky.com.

IWantMyRocky.com was supported by revenue from Google Ads that line both sides of the front page.

While traditional newspapers might spend 60 to 70 percent of their budgets on printing and distribution, In Denver Times would spend mostly on the 30 former News writers, editors and a cartoonist who would be on the staff, said Ray, who co-founded the digital marketing agency Xylem Digital. His father and grandmother were both in journalism.

All three founders have roots in Denver. They said that though they never considered buying the News from Scripps, they couldn't imagine the newspaper dying.

Gray, a founding partner of the executive search firm McAleer Gray and co-founder of the WiFi company Wayport Inc., said it's clear successful newspapers will need a new financial model.

"Somebody had to step into the breach and try to be that," Gray said.

The Denver Post is the only remaining major daily in print in Denver. Publisher and Chairman William Dean Singleton was in a meeting and was not immediately available to comment on the announcement by In Denver Times.

Singleton is also chairman of the board of The Associated Press.

Details on compensation at the new venture, how video and photography might be collected, and who would be hired as an editor have yet to be decided, but Gray said staffers who would be hired if the subscriber goal is reached could make a living off the new venture.

Steve Foster, former News assistant sports editor for interactive, would be managing editor.

The co-founders wouldn't say how much they already have invested, how much they expect to invest, or how much advertising they might need. They said they have discussed taking their online-subscription model to other cities if it works in Denver.

Organizers said they had 110 subscribers within the first hour that In Denver Times started taking orders, most of them for a full year. Ray said 50,000 pledges should be enough to sustain the publication for a year.

Shortly after Scripps announced Dec. 4 that it was putting the News up for sale, News presentation editor Kim Humphreys called staffers together to discuss what was next. From that came the Web site IWantMyRocky.com, where they could rally community support. Former News staffers have been donating their time to reporting for that site.

Foster said the group talked casually with "a couple" of other entrepreneurs interested in a new Denver publication, but the entrepreneurs behind In Denver Times were most interested in the scale of publication that the former News staffers wanted to keep alive.

Skeptics have asked whether readers will pay for content, but "collectively we need to prove them wrong," Ray said.

Former News reporter Tillie Fong is among those who would be hired at In Denver Times if enough subscribers sign on.

"I want to be a journalist. This is 'what I want to be when I grow up,"' she said. "When the Rocky closed, it was traumatic, shocking. It was a hard blow. It was a death. This is sort of like a phoenix."

What do you think of the online venture? Would you pay a $4.99 subscription for your news? Leave your comments below.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Goes Web Only

Meanwhile, Hearst Corp., which owns the 146-year-old Seattle Post-Intelligencer announced on Monday that it failed to find a buyer for the newspaper, and so the newspaper will print its final edition Tuesday.

Hearst's decision to abandon the print product in favor of a Web-only version is the first for a large American newspaper, raising questions about whether the company can make money in a medium where others have come up short.

And last month Hearst said it would close or sell the San Francisco Chronicle if the paper couldn't slash expenses in coming weeks. In Arizona, Gannett Co.'s Tucson Citizen is set to close Saturday, leaving one newspaper in that city.

The newspaper industry has seen ad revenue fall in recent years as advertisers migrate to the Internet, particularly to sites offering free or low-cost alternatives for classified ads. Starting last summer, the recession intensified the decline in advertising revenue in all categories.

Four newspaper companies, including the owners of the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and The Philadelphia Inquirer, have sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in recent months.

While the P-I's Web site ensures it a continued presence in the Seattle news market, it will likely be a pared-down version of its former self -- operating with a skeleton staff and a heavy reliance on blogs and links to other news outlets.

In February, the P-I Web site had 1.8 million unique visitors and 50 million page views, according to Nielsen Online. Meanwhile the newspaper's print circulation was down to 117,000 from nearly 200,000 in 1998, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Hearst did not immediately say how many of the P-I's 181 current employees would work on the Web product. This month top executives made provisional offers to about two dozen staffers.