BAR: TRINITY GRILLE
Trinity Grille is almost 30 years old. It sits on its haunches like a New York tavern at 1801 Broadway, across from the the Brown Palace. You enter through the foggy, stained-glass door that creaks more than Hal Holbrook’s knees. Eighteen sturdy big-butt stools gather at the bar; tables and booths fill the rest of the 4,300 square feet. Stuffed pheasants hang behind the bar, along with one TV. Lunch is always a riot, with regulars ordering the signature crabcakes and steakburgers. The Trinity has served straightahead tavern food from Day One. Nothing is deconstructed at this hangout where, owner Tom Walls must think, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
GRILLED: WILLIAM DEAN SINGLETON
William Dean Singleton turns 60 on Aug. 1, and he says it’s just another birthday. He was raised on a ranch near Graham, Texas, and started his newspaper career as a 15-year-old cub reporter for The Graham Leader covering high school sports. He now owns that paper — and 61 more as chairman and chief executive of ap, which owns The Denver Post. He expects to step down as CEO this summer to become executive chairman of ap and publisher of The Denver Post and The Salt Lake Tribune. He started his first paper at 21, the Clarendon Press in Clarendon, Texas, and created ap in 1983. Singleton is married with three children. He has multiple sclerosis and no longer walks, so he steers a four-wheel scooter sideways to one of the tables in the bar. The waiter brings a chilled bottle of chardonnay.
Singleton: I love chardonnay. They are always finding me new chardonnays here. I adopted this place as my hangout when I first came in here 24 years ago. They’ve been taking care of me ever since.
BH: How does the scooter work for you?
Singleton: I love it. I use this one for downtown Denver. I go to the Rockies games in this. This will last 20 hours and go anywhere in Denver. I have two smaller ones I use in the office and one at home, one at the Cape Cod house and a big giant four-wheel-drive one at the ranch, and I can go all over.
BH: When did you have to start using scooters?
Singleton: Three years ago.
BH: Does it make you crazy? The MS?
Singleton: No. Actually, I have learned to live with it. I’ve had MS for 24 years. The first 10, it didn’t bother me that much, and then I moved to a cane, and then to a walker and then from my walker to a chair.
BH: How is your health in general?
Singleton: My health is excellent except for MS. It just affects my mobility, and obviously it’s painful. Very painful. If there is any bad news, it’s I may live to be 100 like this.
BH: Do you get angry?
Singleton: Nah. It’s just part of life. I still enjoy most things. Good wine, good food, good company. I just don’t walk, hike or ski anymore.
BH: Where do you see The Post going?
Singleton: Well, it became clear a long time ago that there would be a gravitation of both readers and advertisers to new media. It happened gradually, and then it happened rapidly, in a hurry. And I don’t think newspapers did a very good job of adapting to it. I think newspapers just grabbed their newspaper and put it up on the Web, and thought everything would be OK. And suddenly the business fell off a cliff in 2006, worse in 2007 and 2008. 2009 was dismal.
Revenues for newspapers today are half of what they were at the peak. In order to protect the core, we had to dramatically reduce our costs, which we did. Then we had to focus more on online and invest in it. The goal is to show growth in new media that will equal the decline in print, and I think we are a year away from that.
BH: What about mobile?
Singleton: The game is shifting from online to mobile. It was not a natural thing to get your news and information on a PC. But it’s very natural on an iPad or any kind of tablet. I realized that the transition was moving fast when I saw my friend Dan Ritchie, who is almost 80 years old, reading The Post on his iPad.
BH: What do you do personally with electronic media?
Singleton: I am still primarily print. At 5 in the morning, I get every newspaper available in Colorado. I still love ink on my fingers.
BH: Do you use Facebook or Twitter?
Singleton: Not yet.
BH: Will print stick around?
Singleton: I hope so. It’s still 80 percent of our revenue. It pays your salary. There is not enough revenue in new media to pay for a newsroom.
BH: What about firing people?
Singleton: It’s no fun. I hate to do it, but you have to make hard decisions sometimes.
BH: How many people now work for you?
Singleton: About 11,000.
BH: How do you sleep at night with 11,000 families depending on you to keep their papers afloat?
Singleton: One thing I never have had trouble with is sleeping, but I don’t sleep a lot of hours.
BH: Do you worry about the papers?
Singleton: A lot of people are out there saying we don’t have a future. I think we do have a future, but it’s a different future.
BH: What was it like to see the Rocky go away?
Singleton: As a lover of newspapers and hopeless reader of newspapers, it was very sad. As the publisher of The Post, it saved our future.
BH: Did you ever consider closing The Post?
Singleton: Never.
BH: Do you have a legendary newspaper hero?
Singleton: Probably William Randolph Hearst. He created a lot of newspapers in a lot of places. He put out exciting newspapers, he used newspapers to do things that were important to him, and he loved them. And it happens that he died the month I was born.
BH: What’s your greatest fear?
Singleton: My biggest fear is that my body will be totally unusable before my brain is.
BH: Is that possible?
Singleton: It’s possible.
BH: What trait don’t you like in yourself?
Singleton: Sometimes I am too serious.
BH: What’s your greatest extravagance?
Singleton: Chardonnay.
BH: What restaurants do you like?
Singleton: Trinity Grille, Elway’s Cherry Creek, Strings, Shanahan’s, Luca D’Italia.
BH: Where do you shop?
Singleton: I haven’t been shopping in a store in 20 years. I never shop. I have my clothes brought to me from Andrisen Morton. They know my size.
BH: Music?
Singleton: Next to newspapers, music is my biggest passion. I listen to everything except rap.
BH: What’s your daily schedule?
Singleton: I wake up at 5, read the newspapers in my living room, listen to Peter Boyles. He beats up The Post all the time, but he’s my good friend. At 6:30, my physical therapist comes, and he’s done at 7:30. I shower, and my driver comes at 8, and I go to the office. I eat lunch at the paper, and about 6, I meet someone for dinner almost every night for business. I am home about midnight — and then I do it all over again.
BH: Do you go to church?
Singleton: I go regularly. I love going to church.
BH: On what occasion would you lie?
Singleton: If someone asks me how I’m feeling, I always say “Great.” And I am in constant pain with MS. I may tell you I’m feeling fine, and I may feel like crap.
BH: Do you take pain medicines?
Singleton: I don’t take anything except Advil before I go to bed. And after workouts.
BH: What do you dislike about your appearance?
Singleton: I am too fat.
BH: Who are the greatest loves of your life?
Singleton: My three children and my granddaughter.
BH: When and where were you happiest?
Singleton: The last 24 years in Colorado.
BH: Who is your favorite writer?
Singleton: David Halberstam.
BH: Do you have a hero in fiction?
Singleton: I don’t read fiction. I don’t like fiction. I only want to read about life.
BH: What do you most dislike?
Singleton: Brussels sprouts.
BH: What’s your greatest regret?
Singleton: That I am closer to the end of my journey than the beginning.
BH: How would you like to die?
Singleton: On my King Cat snowmobile going off the highest point on my ranch.
BH: Motto?
Singleton: Cash in must exceed cash out.
Interview conducted, condensed and edited by Bill Husted: 303-954-1486 or bhusted@denverpost.com.
