Dean and Dick met in New Jersey. Dean was running several newspaper businesses for Joe Albritton and was behind in his print payment. Dick was also in the newspaper business and doing quite well. The two of them began meeting every-so-often so Dick could give Dean some ideas to help him with his repayment plan. Their respect for each other grew into a strong friendship and in the early eighties the two men created their own company when they entered into a newspaper partnership. Their company soon became a conglomerate known as MediaNews Group. It made them both successful and wealthy men.

Stories of people going from rags to riches sounds too good to be true, like a Disney movie, but they're not. It came true for William Dean Singleton and Richard Scudder. Singleton is the vice-chairman and CEO of MediaNews Group. Both men are the two principal owners of the MediaNews Group company. What they do is they buy failing newspapers and then they "fix" them in hopes of making a profitable investment.

The Salt Lake Tribune newspaper has changed hands not a few times. Presently, MediaNews Group now owns it. Due to legalities however, MediaNews can't run the paper. The McCarthey family is legally running it. It sounds like a very complicated story with many twists and turns, and it is. In a very simplified version of the facts this article will describe what has happened and why and what is happening to the Salt Lake Tribune.

The RGPL cites MediaNews stating "In only sixteen years his (Singleton's) newspaper company has become the seventh largest in the U.S. . . .By 1999 MediaNews had fifty dailies, with a total circulation of more than 1.8 million." The article also stated that MediaNews owned 51 daily and 94 non-daily newspapers in 13 states total."

For having become such a huge success in business, one would believe Singleton had graduated from college. Not so, said Zerbey. Singleton had attended a few universities but as far as Zerbey knew, had never received a degree. Recently, Zerbey said, Singleton had been appointed by the Bush Administration to begin a discussion with the State Department on how to create a vibrant free press in Russia. The talented are noticed, even without a college education.

"Dean Singleton owns the Tribune", said Zerbey. "But the McCarthey Family is running it right now. When Dean begins running the paper there will be a lot of good changes. You'll be able to tell the difference."

Winning a Pulitzer isn't a priority for MediaNews right now. Settling a newspaper dispute with the Salt Lake Tribune, the Deseret News and themselves is.

In a June 10 article titled "This town isn't big enough for all three", the news magazine Utah Spirit, put a statement on its website, found at www.clippertoday.com. It concerned the Sunday, June 9, effort made by the Tribune to give their version of the situation to the public. "Due to the complexity of the issue", said Clipper Executive Director Rolf D. Koecher, "the account was hard to follow." It was confusing for most people to understand. The clippertoday's explanation of the situation was less complicated to follow.

Koecher believes that several things can happen. "An all-out newspaper war fought among what could become three Salt Lake City dailies." Another option would be "the Salt Lake Tribune managers, Denver-based MediaNews Group Inc., and the Deseret News could enter into litigation that could take months or even years to settle."

The scenario that is "far more likely", states Koecher, "is the squeeze play." Which seemed to be what the U. S. District Judge Ted Stewart was hoping for when he gave his "Solomon-esque ruling on May 20 that all three parties had won." According to Koecher, The Tribune managers had won a court agreement that gave them the option to buy back their newspaper in August of this year, following a five-year delay. While the reason the Deseret News and MediaNews won was they were told the "Deseret News holds the right to approve who purchases the Tribune."

This ruling gave the Deseret News the authority to choose who the next owner of the Salt Lake Tribune would be. Koecher stated, that the Deseret News can choose between "The MediaNews Group or the Tribune managers (officially known as Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co.) in the event of a negotiated settlement." The Tribune managers are also better known as the McCarthey family, descendents of a former owner of the Tribune.

In another article titled "Confused by Tribune, Deseret News battle? *A quick guide to the twists, turns and players" found on the website www.clippertoday.com. It contains a profile of the key companies involved in the news battle.

The article stated that the Kearns-Tribune LLC is the name of the company that owns the Salt Lake Tribune. It also stated that in 1997 the Salt Lake Tribune merged with TCI. Soon thereafter, stated the article, it merged again with AT&T. Then, in January 2001, AT&T sold the Salt Lake Tribune to MediaNews Group.

"Tribune Publishing is the informal name of Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co., headed by key Tribune executives who have a contract to operate the newspaper with the option to buy it back after five years." The article stated. The five years are up this August.

The Deseret News is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It is an afternoon daily newspaper that use to be completely independent from the Tribune, but now have shared printing, advertising and circulation operations since the two newspapers entered a joint operating agreement (JOA) in 1952 and again in 1982.

The Newspaper Agency Corporation better known as (NAC) is also in the middle of things. It provides all of the printing, distribution, advertising and circulation that both the Tribune and the Deseret News require. NAC was organized when the two papers entered a joint operating agreement (JOA) in 1952 and renewed it in 1982. One source of complaints, the article indicates, is the fact that both papers appointed two members of the NAC board of directors. But, the president of NAC is appointed by the Tribune, causing the Deseret News to believe the NAC favors the Tribune.

Tele-Communications Inc. or TCI, "was founded by former Tribune publisher Jack W. Gallivan and Bob Magness through a merger of several smaller companies in the early 1950's," the article stated. It grew by providing cable TV for towns out in the middle of nowhere. It merged with AT&T.

TCI merged with the Tribune "to take advantage of tax laws and reap a $750 million windfall by operating the Tribune under contract, then buying it back for a song five years later," stated the article Answers to key questions about Utah's media war.

According to the same source the merger with TCI was proposed to keep the company from breaking up when the estates of the Kearns-Tribune heirs was settled. The former Tribune publisher Jack W. Gallivan proposed the merger.

According to the article found at the website www.clippertoday.com, present Tribune Publisher Dominic Welch said that the merger "helped retiring employees get full market value from their retirement plan, which consisted of privately held Tribune stock. Instead of having their stock valued by an independent appraiser, the merger gave employees publicly traded TCI stock, which they could sell on the open market. It also made a number of long-time rank-and-file employees wealthy." According to Welch, the McCarthey family only gave their approval to the merger "after the buy-back option was added to the deal."

The Deseret News also had the power of approval, but the merger wasn't even brought to their attention until the transaction was completed.

Welch stated that the Tribune signed the merger on April 18, 1997 and a day before it's closing, on July 31, 1997, attorneys put an extra line in the merger giving the Deseret News the power of approval option. In fact, the Deseret News only found that the merger had taken place when the story was printed in the paper. TCI hadn't been aware the Deseret News needed to approve the merger either.

"The Deseret News later consented to AT&T's sale of the Tribune to Media News," said Deseret News Publisher Jim Wall according to www.clippertoday.com and in the article Answers to key questions about Utah's media war. "But specifically reasserted its right to provide consent for the original merger with TCI."

According to the article, MediaNews frowned upon the TCI merger with the Tribune. Jody Lodovic, the President of MediaNews Group, Inc., said, "The bottom line is that this (merger) is all a ploy to keep the Salt Lake Tribune and its other assets and avoid $150 million in taxes. Insisting that having one's cake and eating it too isn't easily done."

MediaNews will more than likely be approved by the Deseret News and begin making some positive changes in the Utah press. Their reputation for top notch reporting was strengthened, when last year Singleton's biggest paper, the Denver Post, won a Pulitzer Prize for the coverage of the Columbine High School massacre. Singleton hopes to increase the quality of news coverage in his NewsMedia Group in the next few years, with hopes of making the Pulitzer Prize commonplace in his company," stated MediaWeek magazine.

Utah newspapers do not have the best reputation for providing the public with need-to-know facts concerning "hard hitting" news. One way to rate whether an article or a newspaper is filled with "hard news" or "soft news" (infotainment) is to give it the milquetoast test.

The milquetoast test is a news evaluation tool used to categorize the articles in a paper and subsequently rate the overall quality of the paper. Articles rated a "1" are advertising based and those rated a "2" are public relations or originated by special interest. Those rated a "3" are canned, boilerplate, syndicated or outside institutions. They can also be written by part-time staff and stringers. Articles rated a "4" are soft news like features and sports. Wire services and those general news articles written by full time staff members are rated a "5". They are usually objective news. Number "6" is any article that is interpretative, does analysis, or provides background. A "6" is something that goes beyond a "5" and/or gives an old story an update or new angle. Enterprise reporting, advanced reporting, mild muckraking, public affairs and in-depth reporting are rated a "7". Reporter's who use someone else's work like the Pentagon Papers and Watergate tips or use any government documents are rated an "8". Census data falls into the "9" category which is precision reporting. The last and highest rating an article can receive is a 10. A story that receives a 10 encompasses any original muckraking work. Ida Tarbell's five-year investigative report concerning Standard Oil is an example of a 10.

With reporters forced to grind out the news so quickly, more and more "infotainment" is replacing the news in the newspapers. Newspapers are finding that a lot of their readers don't want the "real" news like the Pentagon Papers and Watergate. But rather, the public wants to be entertained with the news. To prove this point the milquetoast test was performed on the Salt Lake Tribune. The test results proved that most news is general, not investigative, ranging from a 1 to a 5 on a scale from 1 to 10.

The milquetoast test was performed on three issues of the Salt Lake Tribune. The first issue was the Sunday, May 19, 2002 edition. It boasted a total of 120 pages and 131 stories. In total there were 71 wire stories, 56 staff stories and 4 PR stories.

One article was rated a 1, one was rated a 2. Thirty-four articles were rated a 3, forty-three articles were rated a 4 and forty-five articles were rated a 5. Only five articles were rated a 6 and two articles were rated a 7.

The second newspaper issue milquetoasted was the Tuesday, May 21 edition. It totaled 50 pages and 98 stories. In total there were 51 wire stories, 41 staff stories and 3 PR stories.

Two articles were rated a 1, and four articles were rated a 2. Fifteen articles were rated a 3. Fourteen articles were rated a 4 and fifty-five articles were rated a 5. Five articles were rated a 6, and only three articles were rated a 7.

The third newspaper milquetoasted was the Thursday, May 23 edition. It totaled 64 pages and 131 stories. In total there were 75 wire stories, 52 staff stories, 2 PR stories and 2 others.

Two articles were rated a 1, and three articles were rated a 2. Twenty-nine articles were rated a 3, sixteen articles were rated a 4 and sixty-two articles were rated a 5. Fourteen articles were rated a 6, and four articles were rated a 7. Only one article was rated an 8.

Jonathan Wardle, a senior in print journalism at BYU, gathered additional information concerning newspapers in Utah and made two tables of comparisons. The first comparison was the average milquetoast score for six Utah papers.

The totals in table 1 prove that most of the stories in Utah newspapers are rated less than a 5 on the milquetoast test, which is plain news. As the table illustrates, the news trend is leaning more toward features, sports and syndicated columns. The public has lost interest in being well-informed concerning community and national needs, obligations, and civic duty. What the consumer want, the consumer gets. Journalists are more than happy to give entertainment news to the public at the cost of their professional values and obligations.

Table 2 gives the percentage of "hard news" found in three issues of six Utah papers. It also illustrates the average percent of "hard news" found in the newspapers for the three issues combined. These charts prove "hard news" is being replaced with "soft news" or "fluff" many times due to the fact that "hard news" coverage costs much more and is less entertaining.

It is difficult to predict the outcome of media wars since there are so many players and numerous legal twists and turns. Hopefully this summer 2002 will hold answers for resolving the entire situation. The Deseret News doesn't like contention and the Church of Jesus Christ doesn't like the possible negative publicity either. Negotiations will more than likely ensue. The question is who will the Deseret News give their stamp of approval to?

If the Deseret News wants a good Utah press again where Pulitzer prizes are actual possibilities, they will need to let an outsider like MediaNews Group come to Utah to raise the quality of the news. If the Deseret News doesn't want conflict and prefers to live in a little glass bubble where nothing "upsetting" is printed, then they should stick with a company already here in Utah.

Copyright Brigham Young University 17 Jul 2002