In the '90s, journalists at the two Denver newspapers were caught up in a newspaper war.

It was a bitter fight - one that obscured much more serious competition on the horizon.

The joint operating agreement that went into effect in January 2001, creating a new company to handle the business operations for both papers and leaving the newsrooms separate and independent, let us lift our heads and look around at the world afresh.

What we found was that the Internet era was a much bigger challenge - and opportunity - than the newspaper war ever was.

Our first war was about which newspaper was better at essentially the same business.

This war is more like the gold rush that put Colorado on the map. There's a sense of urgency, largely because the shift of eyeballs and money to the Internet is so dramatic.

To give you an idea how seriously the company that owns the Rocky Mountain News now takes the Web, of the eight days I've spent this year at corporate meetings, six have been dedicated to growing our Internet traffic and revenue. This even though less than 5 percent of our revenue comes from the Web. I just returned from Memphis, where more than 100 publishers, editors, marketing directors and top advertising people from all the papers owned by the E.W. Scripps Co. met for a conference titled "Toward digital citizenship - The future of our business."

While we were there, a dreadful earnings report at another major newspaper company prompted business commentator James Cramer to write: "Every time I think that my business is challenging, I think of what the newspapers face. The newspaper game, for the last decade, has been one of cost cuts and mergers. There's been no growth in the business. Now, with regulatory authorities frowning on any further mergers, with the cost cuts already in place to the point where you might just as well run Associated Press copy throughout if you make more job eliminations and with newsprint and delivery costs through the roof, a bleaker situation looks, alas, even more bleak than I thought."

Well, anybody who's seen Cramer on TV knows he's a wild guy who's prone to overstatement. (For example, here in Denver the newsrooms are actually larger today than at the start of the JOA.) But his comments reflect the sobering nature of the talk at our meeting, with one key difference.

While he's rightly focusing on the challenges we in the newspaper industry face, at Scripps we're trying to focus on the opportunities.

As one speaker, Clark Gilbert of Harvard Business School, told us: "The (newspaper) industry is in huge trouble. The industry also has the opportunity to grow in a way it hasn't in 100 years."

That's why Scripps, which also owns HGTV, the Food Network and a number of other lifestyle cable channels, bought the Shopzilla Internet shopping service for more than $500 million this year. I believe it's also why there's been such strong support for YourHub.com, our new Web community news initiative where readers contribute most of the content.

To show you the potential of this new world, YourHub.com, which started just four months ago with the launch of 40 Web sites, is now the information provider to screens in 18 metro-area Wal-Mart stores and a media partner of the Denver Broncos, certainly the state's strongest sports brand. More than 100,000 people have visited our sites, and other newspapers around the country are now buying the same software to build their own hubs.

I thought you might be interested in some of the perspective I can share from this week's meeting.

* The consensus is that we're moving away from a media world of one-way communication (think network news anchors) to two-way dialogue.

* The individual is at the center of this world, not technology.

* The three big Internet portals - Yahoo, AOL and MSN - have more than 50 million visitors a day, twice the audience of a World Series game.

* Sixty-eight percent of teens have their own home page or blog site.

* Sixty percent of Americans play computer games, and the average gamer plays for 6.5 hours per week. The gaming industry now brings in more money than Hollywood does at the box office.

* Businesses now spend more on Internet advertising than on magazine and billboard advertising.

* Internet advertising is expected to grow nearly 50 percent in Denver next year.

What does all this mean? I believe it means you'll see us take more risks over the next few years, trying to better serve the needs of individuals and businesses, to carve a position in your lives that guarantees the Rocky will thrive in its third century.