When Alexander Lebedev and his son, Evgeny, took over The Evening Standard of London 14 months ago, the media coverage focused on the father's status as a former KGB agent and Russian oligarch, and on both men's taste in beautiful women. Many news reports asked whether they would be an unhealthy influence on one of Britain's major newspapers. By last Thursday, when they struck a deal to buy another respected but failing British paper, The Independent, the question had become whether the Lebedevs had improbably emerged as among the best hopes for preserving serious journalism in Britain. 'I think it was too flattering for me,' Alexander Lebedev, 50, said wryly of the recent coverage, in an interview by telephone from Moscow, while on his way to meet a business partner, Mikhail Gorbachev, the former Soviet leader. 'I hope I don't get spoiled.' Last October, the Lebedevs changed The Evening Standard, which serves the London region, into a free paper without paring back its content -- this, in a nation where free papers have tended to be breezy digests. It also nearly tripled its circulation, to more than 600,000. Aided by the deaths of two free London dailies last year, The Standard claims that it has gained far more in advertising revenue than it has lost in reader payments. 'We've gone from a paper that was losing almost 500,000 pounds a week,' or about $745,000, 'to now half that or even less,' said Evgeny Lebedev, 29. As chairman of The Standard -- he will hold the same title at The Independent -- he is much more closely involved than his father in the paper's operation. Through the months of negotiations over The Independent, one of Britain's national papers, the news media have speculated about whether it might also go free, or at least cut its 1-pound price. That could undercut the other serious national newspapers, particularly The Guardian. 'One thing we do know is we can't go forward in its present form,' Evgeny Lebedev said of The Independent, which lost 12.4 million pounds (about $18.5 million) last year. 'There needs to be some sort of change in the business model.' The Lebedevs say they have made no decisions on a new strategy. More striking, they say they care about how other papers would be affected -- a far cry from the usual, cutthroat view of the press baron. 'If you're trying to save a good paper, you don't try to damage the others,' Alexander Lebedev said. 