By Joe Dana
After 47 years of matrimony, the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News are wearing on each other. One says it’s his fault. The other says she’s too stubborn. He never compromises. She never shares.
The partners in news are moody; financially joined together until the year 2013, but in most other ways, growing apart.
“They’re in a very nasty stage,” said Paul Pratte, who has worked as a reporter for both newspapers and is a communications professor at BYU. “They’re throwing things at each other.”
The latest heaves were exchanged editorials at the beginning of this week. Employees at both papers say the intense competition of news rivals is going beyond just getting the scoop. They are creating a scoop.
“Both sides are accusing the other of outright lying,” said Ralph Barney, editor of the Journal of Mass Media and Ethics.
An editorial from the Tribune on Sunday, Dec. 3, accused the News and its owner, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, of planning a conspiracy to weaken the Trib through a manipulated buy out, helping the News eventually be able to move its publications to the mornings.
“Both papers have proven to be extremely competitive, and they are proving their sides,” said Milt Hollsten, a former reporter for the Tribune and a professor at the University of Utah.
It is a tale of one city and two papers. Each represents a side of political leaning, and then of course “there is the added element of religion,” said Editorial Editor Jay Evensen. “That definitely adds an element to the relationship.”
On Monday the News published a defense, part which read, “The strategy (of the Tribune) is clear: to sue AT&T and attack the LDS Church.” It also said the Tribune’s editor, Dominic Welch, told a group of Deseret News board members their newspaper would someday become extinct.
“I don’t mind being attacked by enemies, but being attacked by friends is very painful,” said Welch, who believes he was grossly misinterpreted.
The lawsuit is another issue. The Tribune believes that MediaNews Group, which purchased the Trib from AT&T on Friday, made an illegal deal with AT&T. They are seeking to block the deal. MediaNews Group’s president, Dean Singleton served on the school board of communications at BYU.
“LDS leadership, quite understandably, wants its sectarian spin on certain news events to have at least as loud a voice as the Tribune’s,” according to the editorial.
Singleton, a Baptist, denied that the LDS Church influenced his purchase. The News also has spoken up against the Trib’s editorial.
“We really strongly reject the allegation that the LDS Church is conniving and trying to get the upper hand,” Editor and Chief Operating Officer John Hughes said.
To many Utah residents, it may seem confusing why two newspapers that give each other subtle jabs in ink, actually share profits.
As most businesses simply compete head to head, newspapers often cannot. In 1950 there were 500 cities with at least two papers that rivaled each other, today only 50 are left. To survive, papers team up. They are two baseball teams that trade worn leather gloves between innings.
“Both newspapers have an obligation to try and strengthen themselves,” Barney said.
The Trib and News formed their union in 1952 in a Joint Operation Agreement (JOA.) The two papers share circulation, advertising and printing costs.
JOA’S are common around the country, but they can create awkward and now as it seems, bitter circumstances.
“I’ve seen it’s kind of deteriorated,” said Evensen, referring to the relationship between the two papers. “In some of their columns, they’ve taken shots at us that I don’t think have been very professional,” Evensen said.
Welch of the Trib said the News wants to move to the more profitable morning slot, but that they will not cooperate.
“They don’t want to solve the problem unless they get their way,” Welch said.
Trib management sold rights to the paper’s ownership in 1997 and signed a contract with TCI, to take back the ownership of the paper in 2002. The Trib believes Singleton will deprive the Trib of its current advantages in the market — most notably the dibs it has on morning circulation.
“By gaining more control of the NAC, the News would be in a position to exercise its hidden agenda: to muffle, but not silence, The Tribune,” according to the editorial.
For several years the News has attempted to move from the afternoon circulation to the morning slot, where the Tribune delivers to twice as many readers.
But the News can’t find a compromise with the Newspaper Agency Corporation — which is a joint ownership group of the two papers that enforces the JOA. While it has equal representation, the president is Welch.
“They looked us in the eye and flatly disagreed to cooperate,” Hughes said, who believes Welch has “placed blockades” to keep the Deseret News off Utah’s front doors during the morning.
Pratte believes the current scuffles are apart of JOA relationships.
“Sometimes it’s over-cozy, and sometimes it gets the way it is now,” Pratte said.
Managers on both sides may be reluctant to get cozy any time soon.
