The Salt Lake Tribune

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Marquis of the Salt Lake Tribune on the Tribune Building in Downtown Salt Lake City

The Salt Lake Tribune (ISSN 0746-3502) is Salt Lake City, Utah's largest-circulated local daily newspaper. It has a daily circulation of approximately 130,000 daily editions and 160,000 Sunday papers. The Salt Lake Tribune is published by Newspaper Agency Corporation, which it jointly owns with the Deseret Morning News.

History

The publication was founded in 1871 as the Mormon Tribune by a group of Mormon businessmen who disagreed with the LDS church's economic and political positions. After a year its name was changed to the Salt Lake Daily Tribune and Utah Mining Gazette. Not too long after that, the name was shortened to simply the Salt Lake Tribune.

After being purchased by three "border ruffians" from Kansas in 1873, the paper became known as an anti-Mormon organ which consistently backed the local Liberal Party. Sometimes vitriolic, the Tribune held particular antipathy for Latter-day Saints President Brigham Young. In the edition announcing Young's death, the Tribune wrote,

He was illiterate and he has made frequent boast that he never saw the inside of a school house. His habit of mind was singularly illogical and his public addresses the greatest farrago of nonsense that ever was put in print. He prided himself on being a great financer, and yet all of his commercial speculations have been conspicuous failures. He was blarophant, and pretended to be in daily intercourse with the Almighty, and yet he was groveling in his ideas, and the system of religion he formulated was well nigh Satanic. — The Salt Lake Tribune, August 30, 1877

In 1901 newly-elected Roman Catholic U.S. senator Thomas Kearns and a business partner bought the Tribune. Kearns made strides to eliminate the paper's anti-Mormon overtones, and succeeded in maintaining good relationships with the mostly-LDS state legislature which had appointed him to the Senate. Upon Kearns' death in 1919 his family bought out the partner's share of the publication. The Kearns family owned a majority share of the newspaper until 1997 when they sold it to Tele-Communications Inc., a multimedia corporation, which was later acquired by AT&T. The Tribune was subsequently sold to Denver, Colorado-based MediaNews Group which is owned by publisher William Dean Singleton.

In 2002 the Tribune was mired in controversy after employees sold leaked inside information related to the Elizabeth Smart case to The National Enquirer. Tribune editor James "Jay" Shelledy resigned from his job at the paper amidst the fallout of the scandal. Tribune reporters Michael Vigh and Kevin Cantera also were removed from their positions as Tribune reporters.

In 2004, the paper decided to move out of its historic location at the downtown "Tribune" building and relocate to the Gateway Mall. Many people, including several Tribune employees, opposed the move, stating that it would harm the economy of Salt Lake's downtown. The move was completed in May 2005.

Sources

The First 100 Years, A History of the Salt Lake Tribune 1871-1971, O. N. Malmquist, Utah State Historical Society, Salt Lake City, Utah 1971

External links

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