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 K.G.B. 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.”

Reports in Britain on the Independent deal once again mentioned his K.G.B. past, his vast riches ($2 billion, according to Forbes) and his political aspirations. But this time around, much of it also credited the Lebedevs with keeping alive two money-losing daily papers that probably would have died without the new owners, and not interfering with The Standard’s news coverage.