Deseret News
The Deseret Morning News is a newspaper published in Salt Lake City, Utah, and is Utah's oldest continually published daily newspaper. It has the second largest daily circulation in the state behind The Salt Lake Tribune. The Deseret Morning News is owned by Deseret News Publishing Company, a subsidiary of Deseret Management Corporation, which is a for-profit business holdings company owned by the church.
The newspaper is published by Newspaper Agency Corporation, which it co-owns with the Tribune under a joint operating agreement. Its circulation is roughly half of the Tribune's.
The Deseret Morning News also publishes a weekly tabloid, the LDS Church News, which is included as a section in the newspaper and also distributed as a separate publication outside Utah.
The editorial tone of the Deseret Morning News is usually described as moderate to conservative, and is often assumed to reflect the values of its owner, the LDS Church. For example, the newspaper does not accept advertising that violates church standards. However, it has taken liberal position on CIA secret prisons [1]
History
The Deseret News was first published on June 15, 1850. It was named Deseret News because it was the voice of the then State of Deseret.
Originally a weekly paper, the Deseret News became a semi-weekly in October, 1865 and was named the Deseret Evening News. That title was dropped in 1920. The paper began publishing as an afternoon daily in 1922 and included its first Sunday edition.
After World War II, the Deseret News, The Salt Lake Tribune and the Salt Lake Telegram were all struggling financially. In 1952 the owners of the News and Tribune entered into a joint operating agreement, where each published separate editorial material while sharing printing, advertising and circulation costs. The News stopped Sunday publication for several years; subscribers received a Sunday Tribune instead. The Deseret News also purchased the afternoon Salt Lake Telegram from the Tribune. The Telegram was discontinued, and into the mid-1960s, the afternoon paper's nameplate read: The Deseret News and Salt Lake Telegram.
Deseret News reporter Robert Mullins won a Pulitzer Prize in 1962 for local reporting "for his resourceful coverage of a murder and kidnapping at Dead Horse Point, Utah."
The newspaper moved into its newly constructed headquarters in downtown Salt Lake City in 1997.
In the early 2000s, the Deseret News engaged in a contentious and often public battle with The Salt Lake Tribune. The dispute centered around the terms of their joint operating agreement, the desire of the Deseret News to switch from afternoon to morning publication, and ownership changes at the Tribune. The battle was resolved with the sale of the Tribune and with the News switching to morning publication and changing its name to the Deseret Morning News.
Reference
- Woodward, Don C., ed. (1999), Through Our Eyes: 150 Years of History as Seen Through the Eyes of the Writers and Editors of the Deseret News, Salt Lake City: Deseret News Publishing Co. ISBN 1-5734-660-8
