But first, a bit of back story. It turns out that the Trib has been owned for some 100 years by the McCarthey-Kearns family, and that, in a rather boneheaded move, they sold the paper to TCI in an effort to save tax money. After this, AT&T bought out TCI, and subsequently wanted to rid itself of the Trib. So, who do you suppose AT&T sold the newspaper to? The McCarthey-Kearnses tried very hard to get back this paper which had been in their family for so long, but they were blocked....by the LDS Church.
Anyways, there is a superb post on this on another forum. You can read further discussion of this topic here http://forums.southernutah.com/archive/ ... -3788.html but here is the main post:
(emphasis added)Note that this is the very last day the Tribune managers have control over the newpaper their ancestors founded. The Tribune is now owned by reputed bottom-feeder Dean Singleton, who is heavily in debt and disliked in the industry. I will copy the entire article here, because it will be unavailable in 7 days anyway, and maybe sooner.
http://www.sltrib.com/07312002/utah/757937.htm
Pressure Led to Trib Sale
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
BY CHRISTOPHER SMITH and ELIZABETH NEFF
THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE
AT&T Corp. wanted to get rid of The Salt Lake Tribune by selling it to the LDS Church-owned Deseret News because of "serious threats to AT&T's political interests in the state," according to court documents unsealed Tuesday.
The "great outcome" of such a sale, wrote AT&T Broadband President Leo J. Hindery Jr. to AT&T board member John C. Malone, would be "the good will we will have preserved with the Mormon church and the political leadership of the state."
The July 1999 memo to Malone was an effort to win his support of the Deseret News' planned purchase of The Tribune for $175 million. Two years earlier, Malone had promised the family that owned The Tribune he would support their bid to buy the newspaper back Aug. 1, 2002. The McCarthey family intends to exercise that contested bid, the subject of a federal lawsuit, at one minute past midnight tonight.
The McCarthey family and other former owners of The Tribune sold the newspaper to TCI in 1997, in a lucrative deal that allowed the telecommunications giant to also acquire the TCI stock owned by the newspaper's holding company. TCI and the newspaper were later acquired by AT&T, which sold the newspaper to MediaNews Group Inc. in January 2000.
The exact nature of the political threat to AT&T was not revealed in hundreds of pages unsealed Tuesday, over the objection of the News, as a result of a lawsuit filed by Tribune Editor James E. Shelledy, KTVX television and City Weekly.
But Hindery would later testify, in October 2001, that AT&T's political problems came from "people that hold influence in the state of Utah," specifically The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, "as a shareholder of the News."
When asked exactly what the serious threats were in Utah to the nation's largest telecommunications company, only a portion of Hindery's response was made public Tuesday: "I believe that without resolution of the myriad tax, operating, financial issues associated with the two papers that we faced the threat of a . . . ."
The McCarthey family has long contended AT&T bowed to pressure from the LDS Church when it sold the newspaper to Denver-based MediaNews Group. MediaNews agreed to changes in the 50-year-old business partnership between Salt Lake City's two daily newspapers aimed at increasing the readership of the smaller afternoon News.
'Our Friend': Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, has acknowledged he was asked by a representative of the News to contact AT&T CEO C. Michael Armstrong to assure him there would be no anti-trust implications if the LDS Church owned both daily newspapers and KSL television.
Hatch has said he was merely acting on behalf of a constituent, whom he has declined to name. However, News Chairman L. Glenn Snarr said in an October 2001 deposition that he was "instrumental in having Mr. Hindery call Senator Hatch to get him to call Michael Armstrong."
In an Aug. 3, 1999, memo to the LDS Church's First Presidency, Snarr wrote that the "proposed contact with Michael Armstrong was made. Leo Hindery called our friend, who in turn called Armstrong."
In subsequent questioning during a sworn deposition, Snarr said "our friend" was a reference to Hatch, a member of the LDS Church and the state's senior U.S. senator. However, Snarr said he had never spoken directly with Hatch about the News' takeover plan for the Tribune.
That task fell to San Antonio newspaper consultant Gary Gomm, who had been the LDS Church's frontman since 1996 in its quest to purchase the Tribune, a covert campaign that would continue until fall 2000, a job that earned Gomm more than $1 million in consulting fees from the News.
Documents indicate the secretive plan by the News to wrest control of The Tribune from the family that had controlled the non-LDS newspaper for the past century was spurred by three desires: to save the financially ailing News; to "end Tribune negativity toward the church"; and to create a more favorable business partnership for the News within the jointly owned agency that handles advertising, printing and circulation for both newspapers.
At a Deseret News Publishing Co. board meeting in October 1996, Gomm suggested the News buy The Tribune, take over the morning publication slot, then sell the News off. The idea later morphed into a plan for the LDS Church to own the Tribune but allow the McCartheys to manage it -- a plan never broached with the McCartheys.
The 1997 acquisition of Kearns-Tribune by TCI brought new dimensions to the Tribune takeover campaign by the News. "It is reasonable to expect that an attractive financial return will be the most important consideration for TCI, not the editorial content of the Tribune or a mission to protect the non-Mormon perspective," Gomm wrote to Snarr in November 1997.
The same month, News Editor John Hughes dashed off a "middle of the night" note he hand-delivered to Snarr about his plans to eliminate Tribune staffers or features that were particularly irksome to LDS Church leaders and suggestions for dispelling the notion the church was controlling local media.
"Use the spinoff of the other non-Trib papers to underline that the LDS Church is not a grasping media conglomerate," wrote Hughes, a Christian Scientist whose wife is LDS. "Exploit the presence of a non-Mormon editor [assuming you keep him] to reassure the faint-hearted non-Mormon subscribers."
Gomm and Snarr found Hindery, at the time a TCI executive, especially receptive to the idea of selling The Tribune to the News. In a memo to the First Presidency, Snarr said Hindery had coached youth basketball for LDS wards in New Mexico and "almost became a convert but 'couldn't make the final commitment' "; had told Tribune managers to "knock off the bad jokes and snide remarks about the Mormons"; and was willing to sweeten the Tribune sale to the News by tossing in a bonus: a statewide LDS Church cable television channel.
"A niche channel by which the Deseret News and the church can broaden communications to members and nonmembers," Snarr explained to the First Presidency. "If the church wants to strengthen its voice, this may be the opportunity we have been looking for, but we can't delay."
Backlash Warning: Keeping in near constant contact with the First Presidency about the takeover plan, Snarr also warned church leaders of the potential public backlash should word leak out of the secretive negotiations with TCI to buy The Tribune, which became more complicated after AT&T's acquisition of TCI in March 1999. "We all expect a strong reaction to the transaction, although we are doing all we can to minimize this and to have a finger pointed at me and not at the church," he told the First Presidency in October 1999.
But when word finally reached the McCarthey family and managers of The Tribune that a deal was afoot for the News to "extinguish" the family's buyback option and acquire The Tribune, Snarr and Gomm warned the First Presidency to ignore a likely entreaty by Tribune Publisher Emeritus Jack Gallivan, architect of the original 1952 Newspaper Agency Corp. (NAC) business alliance between the News and Tribune.
"We do not know what the Tribune's reaction . . . will be, but think there could be an appeal from Gallivan to Malone or someone at AT&T (they are prepared) and a visit by Gallivan to the First Presidency, probably saying he didn't really mean to sell The Tribune for all that money and asking help in getting it back so they can continue the abusive NAC practices against the News," the two men wrote President Gordon B. Hinckley, First Counselor Thomas S. Monson and Second Counselor James E. Faust. "Don't be sympathetic."
AT&T on the Spot: Malone, whose long friendship with Gallivan and the McCarthey family had been instrumental in the 1997 TCI acquisition and buyback options, said in a deposition that Armstrong expressed his concern with the potential unhappiness of the LDS Church toward AT&T because it owned The Tribune.
"He made it clear that it was important to AT&T that they have good relations with all material players in the markets in which they did business, which I certainly understood," Malone said. Armstrong had huddled with Hatch and would also make contact with Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt about the potential political benefit to AT&T of selling The Tribune to the LDS Church.
"We believe the governor was probably supportive and definitely not negative to our cause," Snarr reported to the First Presidency of Armstrong's discussions with Leavitt.
But Malone would ultimately be the deal-breaker for the News to acquire The Tribune, despite repeated overtures from Hindery and other lobbyists acting on the News' behalf. He staged a filibuster of Hindery's proposed sale of the paper to the News during an October 1999 AT&T board meeting. In a later deposition, he explained his objection was based on economics, because he felt AT&T executives "were essentially giving the newspaper away and breaching some contracts in order to satisfy some other pressures they were under."
So: it seems that the Church is taking measures to control the media even further.
(Special thanks to my informant on this one.)