Now this should be interesting newspaper war. Tuesday will be the first day that the Washington Post Company’s free commuter daily, the Express, will have some heated competition. The Washington Examiner, owned by the billionaire publisher of San Francisco Examiner, will hit the ground running with bright red distribution boxes, a nameplate branded with an eagle and an ambitious circulation game plan. And ads promoting the newspaper — using side-by-side photos of a girl playing the violin (“PTA”) and a Palestinian girl holding a rifle (“… To PLO”), are already causing quit the stir, says Editor and Publisher.

From the SF Examiner:

The paper will be “tightly edited, getting to the point and telling clear and concise stories … without an article ‘jumping’ onto multiple pages. It will be delivered to readers’ homes and broadly available in news racks — free of charge,” he said.

The Washington Examiner will be the flagship tabloid for the media empire of the “reclusive” Denver billionaire Philip Anschutz, the Washingtonian reported in January. So who exactly is Anschutz? GetReligion took a look at Anschutz back in November.

Harry Jaffee in the Washingtonian says that Anschutz has a lot on his plate: