Talk:The Salt Lake Tribune

Which is Oldest?
They can't both be (Deseret Morning News), but the claim is in both articles. Someone needs to fix this. Moogle 03:33, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Actually, the DNews claims to be the oldest continually printed, whereas the SLTrib claims to be just the oldest...there is a difference... [[user:JonMoore| J ON, Conqueror of Men - (Talk to Me, Baby!)]] 04:13, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The Schwarz Lawsuit as a Defining Historical Event for The Salt Lake Tribune
Newspapers get sued all the time—sometimes for valid reasons, sometimes frivolously. Any ruling against a newspaper would certainly be a significant part of its history. But, out of all the lawsuits ever filed against The Salt Lake Tribune, it seems strange that one in particular (filed in 2003 by Barbara Schwarz) deserves special mention in a section on the paper's history—particularly in light of the fact that claims made against the paper in Schwarz v. SL Tribune were ruled invalid by two courts, and the case was summarily dismissed.

Schwarz sued over a story in which the Tribune reported the number of FOIA requests she had filed was unusually high for a person with no involvement in journalism or law. According to ,

Many of Schwarz’s requests are attempts to substantiate her claims that she is the granddaughter of President Dwight D. Eisenhower and the daughter of Church of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, that she grew up on a private submarine base on the Great Salt Lake (not a secret government base, she noted, as the Tribune reported) and that her husband was wrongfully arrested in Madrid, Spain, in 1988 and taken to the United States, where he is being secretly held.

That makes for interesting reading, but can one person's invalidated legal accusations constitute a defining event in the history of a newspaper? If so, then every grievance ever held against any newspaper should be considered encyclopedic. Either an exhaustive list of legal actions involving the Tribune should be included in the "History" section, or the paragraph should be omitted. Since aspects of this particular lawsuit are quirky and interesting, perhaps the paragraph could be moved to a new section ("Trivia"? "Interesting Lawsuits"? Not sure.) I'm going to try deleting it and see what happens. Rangergordon (talk) 11:41, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

1873 buyout by 'Border Ruffians'?
According to what I have learned before, and according to the Wikipedia article on Border Ruffians, they were a militia-like group who held a pro-slavery, pro-secession viewpoint and fought against the Jayhawkers, an abolitionist and pro-Union militia. This was during the period known as Bloody Kansas, which took place (from what I remember) during (roughly) the late-1850s and the early 1860s prior to the American Civil War.

Since the Civil War was over in 1865, and Kansas had been a state since 1861, I have to question the accuracy of this part of the article's history section. If three men bought the paper in 1873, I think that, if they still considered themselves to be 'border ruffians' in the established sense, they were probably a little out of touch!

Comments? Am I wrong on this? (I grew up in Kansas, and always learned that it was a remarkably peaceful and prosperous state after the war, despite the 'bloody' nature of its prior history....)

itinerant_tuna (talk) 08:18, 2 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree. This is WP:POV. I have changed it. Let's name purchasers, if we can. Labeling them was intended as a slur anyway, which is uninformative in itself and not encyclopedic. Student7 (talk) 15:20, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Editorial slant
I know this can be hard to describe in NPOV and with reference to reliable sources, but how does the paper's editorial page usually slant politically? We can measure this mostly objectively: do they more often endorse Democrats or Republicans? In light of its endorsement of President Obama, I doubt I'm the only one curious about this. --BDD (talk) 19:44, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I may have answered my own question, and this endorsement doesn't seem to be a big deal. They did it in 2008 too. --BDD (talk) 19:25, 24 October 2012 (UTC)

Confusing History Section
The "History" section contradicts itself, uses ambiguous pronouns, and seems to reference sections that were removed.


 * 1. What is Kearns-Tribune? How is its "investment into the cable business" relevant?
 * 2. If Thomas F. Kearns Sr. sold his controlling interest in 1952 and the Kearns family maintained a majority share until 1997 and Kearns-Tribune (whatever it was) was somehow involved in the formation of the News Agency Corporation, how can these facts be reconciled?
 * 3. Who is Singleton, and why should we care? Convention is to use the full name the first time a person is mentioned. I assume that a section including Singleton was removed at some point.
 * 4. Who merged with Tele-Communications Inc.? The article says that the family did, but if it was not some family corporation that merged, then this should be stated clearly. If the newspaper merged, then the grammar needs correction. Rscragun (talk) 20:38, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

Rivalry with LDS church and merger controversy
Anyone in Salt Lake City involved in the newspaper business in the 90's remembers the gamble sale to TCI that blew up in their face, and the AT&T/Singleton controversy that followed. One reliable source seems to be American Journalism Review:

"Tensions between the Mormon Church and the Tribune have abounded since 1873, when three Kansans purchased the Tribune to give non-Mormons their own voice in territory increasingly dominated by the church." ... "They paid $1 million for an option to buy it back in July 2002. "The marriage is going to guarantee the newspaper's future," Gallivan was quoted as saying at the time. Instead, the tax-free bonanza ended up putting the family jewels into play in an unanticipated fashion. The TCI deal had barely closed when, in October 1997, TCI's then-President Leo Hindery began offering the Tribune for sale." ... "just two years later, in 1999, they crafted one of the largest deals in U.S. history when they merged TCI, the nation's largest cable TV operation, with AT&T, the largest telecommunications company. Suddenly, the Salt Lake Tribune was owned by Ma Bell. From the beginning, AT&T executives wanted to dump the Tribune, now branded "a non-strategic asset."" ... "In court papers, AT&T executives describe their increasing frustration as they were drawn into escalating squabbles between the Deseret News and the Tribune." ... "The Tribune negotiators thought they were merely tying up a few loose ends, but AT&T was losing interest--a more attractive suitor had come calling. Newspaper magnate Singleton, 49, head of a $1 billion media empire of 49 dailies and 94 nondailies, had also received a draft sale agreement from AT&T just before Labor Day." 50.160.86.165 (talk) 06:45, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Full transcription of Brigham Young obituary
Hey, I took some time to transcribe the entire article linked in the ref (which I updated, broken link). Not sure how things are done here, but would the transcription be worth linking to as well? I'll just leave it here for now, if anyone's interested: https://redd.it/7pvix8 35.225.221.216 (talk) 09:54, 12 January 2018 (UTC)

Minor problems

 * Do we really need so much history in the lede?
 * The Tribune certainly had many stories criticizing many church leaders. Is there something special about Brigham Young that he gets a quote and the others don't?
 * The article is mostly history. Is there a good reason for this? Sanpitch (talk) 23:40, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

I also don't buy that there's any reason for "DezNat" to be linked in the "See also" section (The DezNat article doesn't mention the Tribune). Why not list every Republican politician who's complained publicly about the Tribune? Sanpitch (talk) 14:41, 27 August 2021 (UTC)


 * I removed the DesNat link Sanpitch (talk) 21:11, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

Its own archive
I was editing the Salt Lake City page, and I came upon a reference to a Tribune article “Sugar House streetcar testing begins next week”. It turns out that it’s one of the articles that have since been moved to the archive subdomain. Now, I’m sure I’ve come across other publications who have such or something similar, but I think with this one I’ve hit the point where I’ve got to ask: Where should it go? Because, it’s the story’s current URL, but it’s also an archive URL. My gut instinct tells me to replace the main URL, because I’d have to know when the publication actually did the archive process (for the archive-date parameter I’m pretty sure its absence produced an error message), and that’s just not accessible because it’s not structured like a .ph, a Web Archive, or what I’ve seen of WebCitation on .ph (some archive links are like that, weirdly enough). Does anyone have their way of doing it? Am I on the right track?--CreecregofLife (talk) 06:23, 3 May 2022 (UTC)