But lately, a tangled saga of wealth and the free press has become Aspen’s summer obsession. It erupted when a wealthy real estate developer sued the Aspen Times, the city’s oldest newspaper, for defamation last spring, saying the paper defamed him and falsely referred to him as a Russian oligarch in the days after Russia invaded Ukraine. A lawsuit by a powerful out-of-town developer might have been big news for the 140-year-old Aspen Times. The paper is a beloved institution that has chronicled scandal and strife from Aspen’s silver mining days through its transformation into a gilded mecca for skiing and cultural action in the Rockies. But former staffers say the paper’s corporate owners, a West Virginia-based newspaper chain, prevented The Aspen Times from writing about the defamation suit and prevented other pieces about the developer, Vladislav Doronin, from is a candidate as the two sides were negotiating a settlement. The lawsuit was settled in May. The publisher and corporate leaders of the Aspen Times say they have not censored any coverage. But the episode disheartened the newsroom and brought criticism in Aspen that the newspaper’s owners had been misled by a developer. One editor resigned. Another editor was fired after opinion columns about what happened. In Aspen, the controversy left residents and officials wondering whether local journalism could still tell the truth fearlessly and independently in a city with such wide gaps in wealth, where the average home costs nearly $3 million, small shops they are replaced by Gucci and Dior and local workers are pushed out. “If we lose that, we feel like there’s nothing left for us,” said Roger Marolt, a longtime columnist who left the Aspen Times. On Wednesday, the Aspen Times responded to that criticism by publishing a long-overdue story delving into the finances of the developer who had sued the paper. The article, based on public records and court documents, raised questions about the developer’s claims that it had stopped doing business in Russia in 2014. The whole story began in early March, when a veteran Aspen Times reporter doing regular checks of the county’s real estate filings stumbled upon a blockbuster: Mr. Doronin had quietly snagged an acre of land at the base of Aspen ski mountain through his company. based in Miami, of the OKO Group. Even in a city with impressive property values, people were stunned by the price. Mr. Doronin paid $76 million, more than seven times the $10 million he had sold the property for less than a year earlier, when a group of local developers bought it from the Aspen Skiing Company, according to property records. The property is part of an ambitious effort to build a new luxury hotel and lodge, lift and ski museum that voters narrowly approved after a divisive referendum. The group of local developers had a public face in Jeff Gorsuch, a second cousin of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. The group had spent years crafting plans and studies and going door-to-door to win voter support. Aspen residents and leaders said they were shocked to read in the local paper that the developers had sold. In an interview, Mr. Gorsuch said the sale was a business decision. “That’s the way the world works,” he said, adding that he had high hopes for the property’s future: “I still think it’s going to be great.” Almost immediately, residents around Aspen began asking about the deal and the new owner, Mr. Doronin. According to court documents, Mr. Doronin was born in what was then Leningrad, now St. Petersburg, and renounced his Soviet citizenship after leaving the Soviet Union in 1985. He is a Swedish citizen who lives in Switzerland and has never held Russian citizenship. his lawyers say. In 1993, Mr. Doronin founded a real estate development company in Russia that built dozens of residential, retail and office buildings in Moscow, according to court records. In the defamation complaint against the Aspen Times, Mr. Doronin’s lawyers said he had earned his money legally, without bribery or corruption, and had nothing to do with President Vladimir V. Putin. After the Russian invasion, Mr Doronin issued a statement on LinkedIn to denounce “Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and to strongly wish for peace”. In an email, Mr. Doronin said Aspen’s “special energy” had drawn him to seek investment and development opportunities there after years of visiting for skiing and summer cultural events. He said he planned to build a hotel on the property and would travel to Aspen to meet with local officials and others. He said he sued the newspaper in April “to address factual inaccuracies that had a negative impact.” In the defamation complaint, Mr Doronin accused the newspaper of inciting anti-Russian sentiment and making “misguided Russophobic attacks” against him. He objected to articles referring to him as an “oligarch” and a letter to the editor that suggested he laundered money through Aspen real estate — all untrue statements, his lawyers said. Rick Carroll, the Aspen Times reporter who uncovered Mr. Doronin’s land purchase, was also among the first to notice the defamation suit in the public records. He spotted it before the newspaper’s owners were even served, according to former staff members. It was another big scoop, except now, the Aspen Times was in the uncomfortable center. The Aspen Times is one of several resort town newspapers purchased last December by Ogden Newspapers, a family-owned company that owns more than 50 newspapers across the country. The CEO, Bob Nutting, also owns the Pittsburgh Pirates. Executives at the Ogden Newspapers decided not to cover the lawsuit while the two sides sought a settlement. Two former editors say Ogden also refused to publish a news article and two opinion columns related to Mr. Doronin. Eventually, the Aspen Daily News broke the news that his competitor had been sued. There was no public screening by the Aspen Times until after the lawsuit was settled in May. Under the settlement agreement, the paper made what an Ogden official described as “minor edits” to two articles. He fired off a letter to the editor and agreed to make a good faith effort to solicit comments from Mr. Doronin for future articles. A headline was changed from “Oligarch or not, new Aspen investor has ties to Russia” to “New Aspen investor has connections to luxury hoteliers.” An editor’s note now on the article says it did not meet the paper’s standards for “accuracy, fairness and objectivity.” The Aspen-based paper’s publisher, Allison Pattillo, disputed criticism that the paper had been silenced. Although the Aspen Times did not cover the lawsuit against itself, she said, there were no restrictions on further articles about Mr. Doronin or the land deal. He said the defamation suit had “zero effect on our coverage.” “The idea that we were bullied by Doronin or that Doronin has any input in the newsroom is ridiculous,” Ms. Pattillo said in an email. “We have not and will never act to suppress the truth.” Some former staff members say the paper’s managers rescinded Mr. Doronin’s reports after he sued. When David Krause, a former editor, emailed management in April to discuss an article investigating Mr. Doronin’s business connections, an Ogden Newspapers executive replied: “There is no report on these matters at this time.” The aftermath led to a flight from newsrooms and a shake-up in public confidence in the paper, according to interviews with more than a dozen local journalists, officials and Aspen residents. The Aspen Institute, a nonprofit organization that organizes the annual summer festival of ideas, said it has “paused” its advertising in The Aspen Times for now. “People have lost faith,” said Marie Kelly, 72, who walks every day from her rented room in an old ski chalet to pick up a copy. “They didn’t emulate Aspen’s attitude, which is: We’re going to put it out there, good or bad.” Mr. Krause left his job as the paper’s editor in May, citing a health scare and conflicts with the paper’s ownership. His replacement, Andrew Travers, a respected local journalist, made restoring public trust his first priority. To that end, he decided to produce two columns that had gone unpublished after the lawsuit was filed, as well as a series of internal emails that showed the turmoil within the paper. Mr Travers said he discussed his plans with his publisher, Ms Pattillo, before releasing the tracks in June. But hours after they were posted, he said, he was called into a meeting and fired by an Ogden official. He said he felt blind. “I had worked through the system to do the right thing for the newspaper and the public interest,” he said. “We’re going to figure this out. It would be a black eye, but we would move on. Obviously, I was wrong.” Officials at the Ogden newspapers declined to discuss Mr. Travers’ firing, calling it an internal human resources matter. Officials in Pitkin County, rattled by the upheaval, recently voted to designate Aspen’s newest, local newspaper, The Aspen Daily News, as the official “paper of record” that publishes all county legal notices. A handful of other advertisers have pulled out. In June, 18 current and former elected officials signed an open letter saying they had lost confidence in the newspaper’s leadership from the Ogden papers and floated the idea of ​​boycotting the paper or refusing to speak to Aspen Times reporters. The letter carried its own blow, with Ms. Pattillo, the publisher, calling it “real censorship.” Today, the newspaper is in…