Anschutz's media moves

L.A.'s most important absentee billionaire, Phillip Anschutz, is "quietly building a small empire of social-networking sites, newspapers and now a leading conservative weekly," says a piece in Forbes.

Jim Monaghan, a longtime aide to Denver tycoon Philip Anschutz, recalls an afternoon at Washington's Union Station when a TV crew from the PBS program NewsHour had come within a hair of doing the impossible: landing an interview with Anschutz, a man who never grants them. But when the PBS crew began shooting customers receiving free copies of Anschutz's paper, the Washington Examiner, they failed to notice a man two feet away from them, dressed in a track suit and sunglasses, who was helping distribute the papers. It was Anschutz.

Why hawk his own papers undercover? To collect honest feedback from customers, says Monaghan. "Anonymity has its benefits." Anschutz has done three interviews in four decades, which he considers "three too many," says Monaghan. He declined an interview request from Forbes for this story...

Anschutz's latest acquisition, The Weekly Standard, loses an estimated $5 million annually. Virtually all media accounts of the sale, announced earlier this month, reported on the transaction with no comment as to how it fits into his vast collection of business ventures. Anschutz not only doesn't grant interviews, his company releases virtually no information on sales or strategy related to his newest foray: media.

Forbes calls Anschutz a "stealth media mogul."