Since its launch in 2005, the second daily metro newspaper owned by conservative billionaire Phillip Anschutz (the first was the San Francisco Examiner) has struggled for an identity in a city crawling with political journalists. But since the November 2008 election, the Examiner has beefed up its staff and pulled prominent right-leaning reporters and pundits away from publications like The American Spectator and National Review. Tapscott and a growing staff of political and opinion writers are carving out an identity as the conservative version of the left-leaning opinion and investigative journalism sites that — in the view of many conservatives — have used reporting to embarrass conservatives and the Republican Party…

If a number of other conservative publishers have their way, the Examiner will get more competition. PajamasMedia, the blog conglomerate that grew out of the “Rathergate” story, is talking to potential reporters for an investigative journalism site. Jennifer Rubin, the site’s Washington editor, declined to discuss the plans but pointed to the site’s coverage of anti-tax “Tea Parties” as proof that “the old model of elite journalists peddling liberal opinion as ‘objective reporting’ is dying.” NewMajority.com, an opinion-heavy site launched by conservative writer David Frum on Inauguration Day, employed former Republican National Committee staffer Moira Bagley as an investigative reporter, but published only 11 of her stories before letting her move on in mid-February. Journalist and commentator Tucker Carlson is currently interviewing conservative journalists for a new site tentatively called The Daily Caller, although he declined to discuss it with TWI, explaining that he had “launched too many ventures that were heavily publicized before they were prepared for scrutiny.”