The Salt Lake Tribune is the largest-circulated daily newspaper in the
U.S. city of
Salt Lake City,
Utah.
The Salt Lake Tribune is distributed by
Newspaper Agency Corporation, which also distributes the
Deseret Morning News. The Tribune — or "Trib," as it is locally known — is currently owned by the Denver-based
MediaNews Group. For almost 100 years it was a family owned newspaper held by the heirs of U.S. Senator
Thomas Kearns. After Thomas Kearns died in 1918 the company was controlled by his widow, Jennie Judge Kearns and son Thomas F. Kearns. The newspaper's long time publisher was
John F. Fitzpatrick who started his career as Senator Kearns' secretary.
History
A successor to
Utah Magazine, the publication was founded in 1871 as the
Mormon Tribune by a group of businessmen led by former LDS Church members
Amasa Lyman and
William Godbe, who disagreed with
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints'
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. For a time, the company also ran an evening edition, which was known as
The Salt Lake Telegram.
After being purchased by three men 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 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,
1877In 1901 newly-elected
Roman Catholic United States Senator Thomas Kearns and his business partner David Keith, 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 elected him to the
Senate. Upon Kearns' death in 1918 his family bought out the Keith's share of the publication.
Kearns' secretary, John F. Fitzpatrick, became publisher in 1924. In 1952, the Tribune entered into a joint operating agreement with the
Deseret News, Salt Lake's daily newspaper (which was owned by the
LDS Church), creating the
Newspaper Agency Corporation. In 1960, Fitzpatrick handed the reins to
John W. Gallivan, who was publisher until 1984 and chairman of the board until 1997.
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 partially 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. Two staffers 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 and
Tribune employees were told by Editor Nancy Conway, "It is just a building".
