New Competition at Salt Lake Dailies

SALT LAKE CITY —  The editor of the Deseret News, in a commentary on the eve of the Winter Olympics, explained what he believes sets Mormons apart:

“What the visitors are finding among the Mormons are kind and helpful people, devoutly religious, whose moral principles make them an anachronism in today’s hedonistic society.”

If Mormons are an anachronism, then so too is the Deseret News itself, singular in today’s newspaper society for unabashedly embracing Mormon values.

The general circulation paper is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, yet it chronically struggles for respect and acceptance even in a state that is 70% Mormon. It fights the reputation--deserved or not--that it is an editorial mouthpiece for the Mormon Church and spins its news accordingly.

It is an afternoon newspaper that sells about 68,500 copies a day, half that of the city’s morning, secular newspaper, the Salt Lake Tribune. It finds itself in only about 20% of the homes in the metropolitan area from Ogden in the north to Provo in the south.

“We don’t take it because it’s too slanted to the LDS church,” said Elizabeth Green, 57, a former president of a Mormon women’s church group. “The Tribune is more worldly. It’s nice to see the other side of things.”

Connie Manwill, 63, a retired teacher who also is active in the church, agreed. “The Deseret News is a bit too rigid for us. I prefer a paper that’s not slanted toward my church. We read stories in the Tribune that wouldn’t be in the Deseret News.”

Other Mormons say they take the paper only because its Saturday edition includes a separate tabloid containing strictly church news.

“If the paper were to allow readers to subscribe only to the Saturday edition, they’d lose half their circulation for the rest of the week,” said Andrew Day, 65, a retired investor and former president of an overseas church mission.

Its editor of five years, John Hughes, vigorously defends the paper, noting that church President Gordon B. Hinckley wants the paper “to reach all sections of the community--all religious groups, all ethnicities.”

Yes, editorials are first vetted by church officials, and they predictably weigh in on behalf of sobriety, fidelity, family and other quintessential Mormon values.

“I don’t have a problem with that,” Hughes said of the church’s oversight on editorials. “After all, they own the place.”

Yes, news coverage is weighed against moral standards. Recently, the paper chose the most modest photograph of singing star Britney Spears so as to not offend readers with too much bared skin.

“We still got letters on that,” Hughes said. “And I wrote a letter back, explaining that we have youthful readers too--and that the picture we published was the least offensive.”

Hughes previously was editor of the Christian Science Monitor, another general circulation newspaper owned by a church. A Christian Scientist, Hughes is the first non-Mormon to serve as editor of the Deseret News since its founding in 1850.

He initially was hired as a consultant on how to improve the paper’s quality.

Among his first missions: to persuade reporters--about a third, he estimated, who are active Mormons--to pursue stories that they might have avoided for fear of stepping on church toes.

The newspaper’s city hall reporter, Diane Ubani, said she arrived at the paper nearly two years ago believing some issues would be taboo--but found otherwise.

She has written about the distribution of 250,000 condoms in Salt Lake City during the Olympics and about a lesbian couple wanting to adopt a child.

“I hardly think the Mormon Church supports lesbian lifestyles,” she said. “But if the church was censoring the news, that story wouldn’t have run on Page 1.”

Exactly his point, Hughes said. “We need to eliminate the perception that the paper is covering news through a Mormon Church filter. There’s no magic formula in accomplishing that. We have to show, through editing and story selection, day in and day out, week over week, that we’re a credible newspaper.”

The paper no longer seems to publish spoon-fed church news, said Jim Fisher, an assistant professor of communication at the University of Utah and a former Tribune employee.

“When the church would send out press releases, we used to see it the next day in the Deseret News, verbatim, on the front page or the front of the metro section,” Fisher said. “They’ve quit doing that. But they still treat church issues with kid gloves.”

Despite Hughes’ efforts, the News still stands accused of either ignoring or downplaying stories that reflect poorly on church affairs.

In 2000, the Salt Lake Tribune reported on how the church--and Gov. Mike Leavitt, a Mormon--tried to cover up the role of Mormon militiamen in the 1857 ambush killings of 120 Arkansas emigrants traveling through southern Utah.

Skulls, unwittingly excavated in 1999 as the site was prepared for a church memorial, showed that the victims had been shot at close range, implicating the armed Mormons--along with Indians--in the slayings.

The Tribune reported how Leavitt and church officials attempted to have the bones reburied without examination in order to spare the church embarrassment.

The Deseret News previously had reported that the California-bound travelers, including women and children, had been murdered by Mormons “for inexplicable reasons” but did not report the recent Mormon-driven efforts to rebury the bones before they could be fully analyzed.

“We have them on credibility, on any story involving the Mormon Church,” Tribune Editor James E. Shelledy said. “They’re very deferential toward their church.”

The News, critics say, also gives short shrift to other topics sensitive to the church, including polygamy, incest and welfare fraud.

Hughes said his paper dodges nothing and that his competitor is guilty of sniping at the church unnecessarily.

While both newspapers reported the Olympic bidding scandal, Fisher said the News underreported the “hypocrisy angle--that Mormons were involved in the scandal” by plying Olympic organizers with money and other gifts to win the Winter Games.

Fisher, who studies both newspapers, said the Tribune is the more aggressive because it has little to lose--and the News has little to gain.

“There’s no outrageous pressure at the News to push any envelopes, rock any boats,” he said. “That’s part of the church culture, to not be confrontational. The Tribune does rock the apple cart, though, and since it’s the paper of record, Mormon politicians have to suffer the Tribune.”

The News does not disclose in the paper that it is owned by the church; its masthead reads, “Utah’s locally owned daily newspaper.” The Tribune calls itself “Utah’s independent voice since 1871.”

During the Games, the News is printing about 40,000 morning copies for news rack sales and hopes to become a morning publication to build circulation.

Those efforts are stymied, however, by a convoluted and nasty lawsuit. The two newspapers are partners in an agreement to share production, advertising and circulation functions. Control of the Newspaper Agency Corp., however, rests with the Tribune, which last year was sold by AT&T; to MediaNews Group Inc., a Denver newspaper conglomerate.

Tribune managers sued to block the sale, which they say was orchestrated with the blessing of the News in the hope of befriending the new owners. That sale, attorneys for the Tribune managers say, violates their option to buy back the newspaper.

The dispute remains unresolved in federal court and has for now thwarted the News’ efforts to publish in the morning.

“We want to go head-to-head with the Tribune,” Hughes said. “We need to get more people to pick up our paper. A lot of people haven’t read us for years and are operating on old assumptions.

“But we know that there are people in this town who will never, ever pick up the Deseret News.”