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Stop the Press

Page 18

by James W. Ure


  Tom Monson had been president of the Deseret News Publishing Company and had sat on the Newspaper Agency Corporation board with us for many years. Monson was a fine man and a good partner.

  So I go in and Hinckley demands an explanation for the stories on Mountain Meadows.

  I said the wrong thing about Mountain Meadows. I told Hinckley, “You should have left the bones with the state instead of giving them to BYU.”6

  It made Hinckley angry, Welch said. The president of the church also expressed anger about a 1998 Tribune article on polygamy and a 1991 article on baptizing certain dead people.7

  Welch continued: “Jack Gallivan used to be able to go in to the church leaders and apologize. He was the spear catcher, although all he had to do to enrage the church authorities was to mention the Nauvoo Expositor. I should have just gone in and apologized. So maybe I screwed up.”8

  He added, “If you meet with the LDS Church leadership, there will always be three of them in the room. Any correspondence will not contain individual names in any narrative, but will say ‘it was related.’”9 Whatever else happened that day in March 2002, it didn't take long for Hinckley's anger to mount.

  “This is enough,” Hinckley was later reported to have said in fury after Welch had left.10 There were those who knew exactly what the words meant: the church's desire to see the Tribune expire was amplified by the Mountain Meadows stories, and maneuvering behind the scenes would make sure it happened.

  Said Welch, “The church needed to get even. They were entitled.”11

  William B. Smart, the Deseret News's editor and general manager from 1975 to 1988, cited the series on the Mountain Meadows Massacre as a “particularly telling example of the Tribune becoming overblown and needlessly abrasive.”12

  Fifteen years later, Jay Shelledy mused on the three-part story that set off the firestorm: “Looking back I think we overplayed Bones of Contention. It should have been a single, long piece.”13

  Be leery of silence. It doesn't mean you won the argument. Often, people are just busy reloading their guns.

  —Shannon L. Alder

  After the three-part series of articles, Bones of Contention, was published fierce squabbling reached a crescendo between the Deseret News and the Salt Lake Tribune over the News's desire to buy the Tribune.

  In 1996, Glen Snarr, a retired Salt Lake City advertising executive and chairman of the board of the Deseret News Publishing Company, had been appointed to sit on the board of the JOA, the Newspaper Agency Corporation (NAC). He filled the seat that had been occupied by Thomas H. Monson, whose other church duties consumed his time.1

  According to the Tribune's publisher, Dominic Welch (Snarr died in 2012), Snarr was assigned to silence the Tribune as part of a mission for the church starting in the 1990s. “Serving the church was Snarr's only interest,” said Welch.2

  Snarr had a media background. As a young man he had worked as a reporter and editor at the Deseret News. He had worked in advertising and public relations. He chaired the Deseret News Publishing Company for nine years.

  Then came a Texas entrepreneur and an active Mormon named Robert Gary Gomm (1938–2011), born in Ogden, Utah.3 “He was a newspaper broker from San Antonio who had assisted negotiating certain amendments to the JOA when it was renewed in 1982,” said Welch. His sole desire was to serve the church, added Welch, and “he would do anything to achieve his goal.”4

  Gomm made it clear to all who would listen, including AT&T and TCI, that he was speaking for Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the church.5

  Behind the scenes the church was shuttling confidential memos from Snarr to the First Presidency and, after AT&T acquired the Tribune, to Gomm and Hindery, strategizing on how best to torpedo the repurchase clause held by the family who had owned the Tribune for more than a hundred years. In June 1999, the church had even prepared a press release announcing that the Deseret News had purchased the Tribune as a result of a transaction with AT&T and that the result would be “two locally-owned, independently-edited newspapers.” It was marked as confidential and would come to light during later court proceedings.6

  Publisher Emeritus Gallivan by now realized Hindery was under the sway of the Mormon Church. He wrote Hindery a letter on July 7, 1999:

  John Malone has indicated, Leo, that your anxiety to sell the Tribune to the Deseret News is motivated by your fears of political or other reprisals against AT&T if it does not make such a sale.

  I have no idea who or what generated these fears but I guarantee you these fears have no foundation in fact. I can only speculate that you have been deceived by the members of the LDS Church who believe the end justifies the means and will stop at nothing to achieve an end they believe will please the First Presidency.7

  The church's secret plan involved buying the Tribune outright or, barring that, taking control of the JOA, although the church initially denied it. Only later would court documents reveal its secret plans.8

  The First Presidency of the church, responding to a letter from Gallivan questioning their good faith in the long-standing JOA agreement, responded that while they regretted the difficulties faced by the newspapers, the Tribune was at fault due to its owners selling to TCI without permission from the church. James Wall, then the Deseret News publisher, says the church never planned to take over the Tribune's news department, only the joint papers’ business operations. Yet in a November 1997 letter to Snarr, Deseret News editor John Hughes offered detailed proposals for content and personnel changes at a church-owned Tribune. One proposal read, “Exploit the presence of a non-Mormon editor (assuming you keep him) to reassure faint-hearted non-Mormon subscribers.” Mr. Wall dismissed that letter as just “an editor's musings.”9

  In February 2000, Tribune reporter Chris Smith said he learned that Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a devout Mormon, had met with AT&T officials on behalf of the Deseret News regarding possible acquisition of the Tribune.10 Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which has broad oversight on mergers, told the phone company he did not see any antitrust problems if the Deseret News acquired another Salt Lake paper. AT&T had been the fifth-largest contributor to Hatch's last campaign for the Senate in 2000.11 He had interceded at the request of Gary Gomm.12

  Senator Hatch also made contact with the office of Governor Mike Leavitt, where he talked to his chief of staff, Ted Stewart.13 Stewart, who would later sit as a judge involved in the case, had to be aware of the church's desires in the matter.

  Hatch would later concede, after the Tribune's revelations about his conversation with AT&T, that the meeting was an “error, as it created what he said was the false appearance that he was trying to influence AT&T.”14

  By now, the church's bitterness (and its eagerness to control or cripple the Tribune) was intensified by the Mountain Meadows Massacre series.

  In CFO Michael Huseby's letter of June 22, 2000, AT&T had told the parties they were accepting open bids for the Tribune on September 30.15 They extended the deadline by six weeks. The Tribune managers bid $175 million and were advised by AT&T to increase it to $180 million. They did. They thought the deal was done. They didn't know the church was bidding too.16

  The church leadership denied that it was trying to buy the Tribune but later admitted it when court documents made it public.17

  “They were lying for the Lord,” commented Patty Henetz, the former Associated Press, News, and Tribune reporter who covered the church and has been on the board of directors of the Utah Newspaper Project/Citizens for Two Voices.18 In fact, the church already had plans for the Tribune once its takeover was complete. In one memo, as was discussed in chapter 21, John Hughes, then news editor of the News, suggested that they fire the Tribune's humor columnist, Robert Kirby, an active Mormon. Hughes called him a “Johnny-one-note” for his acerbic views on community, church, and culture.19

  Kirby has been called on the carpet by Mormon leaders, once for writing that Mormon Church president Gordon B. Hinckley didn't scare him because
Kirby could probably win in a fist fight. Another time was when his column ruminated about attending the LDS Church in the nude. One church leader told him to tone down the “racy language” in his columns (hells and damns are infrequently used). He said, “[N]o, because that is my yard.”20

  The News also planned to “clean up other columnists.”21 Paul Rolly and Joanne Jacobsen Wells were then writing the Rolly and Wells column. Some were certain Pat Bagley, the Tribune cartoonist who taught members of the church to laugh at themselves, would be the first to go.

  For AT&T the deal was becoming more complicated, and they didn't like it. The Mormon Church was prodding AT&T, reminding them what a very large client the church was for the company's wireless and landline business. As the Wall Street Journal reported in 2000, “Ultimately, AT&T decided not to sell the Tribune to the church. But Mr. Snarr and church officials still had plenty of leverage. They threatened AT&T with a $200 million lawsuit related to their business grievances against the Tribune and warned that they would use the veto power granted by the joint-operating agreement to kill any Tribune sale they didn't like.” The Tribune also threatened suit.22

  AT&T was caught up in a nasty squabble in which both sides were intractable. Steven Garfinkel, AT&T general attorney and deal negotiator, wrote that “we were caught in the middle of an impossible and deteriorating situation.”23

  Perhaps AT&T saw a way to sidestep the rancor when they began talks with Dean Singleton, head of MediaNews Group, an empire of forty-nine dailies and ninety-four non-daily newspapers. Singleton, in late October 2000, sent a written proposal to AT&T offering $200 million cash for the Tribune. He also delivered a written promise from the Deseret News that it would drop any plans to sue AT&T, solving any indemnification problems.24 Because of apparent assurances from Singleton, the church agreed not to oppose a sale to MediaNews of the Tribune. How this happened is unclear, and nobody is talking about it.

  AT&T's board accepted Singleton's offer, and it went into effect on November 30, 2000. On December 16, 2000, the New York Times announced Singleton had purchased the Salt Lake Tribune.25

  There has always been speculation about the church paying for, or arranging for, part of the purchase by Singleton. Philip McCarthey, one of the selling shareholders of Kearns-Tribune in 1997, believes this is true.26

  “There had been other interested newspaper groups—Gannett, Pulitzer, McClatchy, Knight-Ridder. Why did AT&T and the church decide to go with a bottom-feeder like MediaNews Group?” asked McCarthey.27

  On the other hand, Dominic Welch does not think the church underwrote or paid Singleton.28 It merely opened the door and said, “Enter, but never forget who opened this door for you.” Welch admits that he and Randy Frisch, former CEO of the Tribune and former treasurer of the JOA operating committee, were newcomers to the rough-and-tumble world of corporate mergers and negotiations.29

  “We're not financial people; we're newspaper people. The main point is that we were honest and felt we were dealing with honorable people…. [W]e were rubes, no question,” said Welch.30 Via a surrogate, the church felt it had the Tribune in a position where the next steps could be taken. The church might not be able to buy the Tribune, but it could certainly neutralize the paper.

  On January 2, 2001, Singleton told Tribune publisher Welch, “MediaNews Group owns the Salt Lake Tribune now.” Even so, the managers would not let Singleton in the Tribune Building.31

  Eventually he did get to address the Tribune staff, and when he did he called the church “our partner,” raising the hackles of many reporters.32 “They [the church] eventually screwed Singleton over as much as anybody,” said Pat Bagley, the Tribune's political cartoonist and a former member of its editorial board.33

  Where to put the blame for the messy and costly fight?

  Michael D. Gallivan, son of former Tribune publisher Jack Gallivan, claimed Shelledy made a bad move in publishing, among other articles, the Mountain Meadows series: “He failed to follow my father's Guide for Publishers, Editors, Writers, Reporters, Columnists, Cartoonists and all Editorial Contributors.” The guide was written by Jack Gallivan in 1983. In it he said, “The Tribune remains vigilant of the LDS Church political activities to guard against possible infringement upon the general welfare. The Tribune, however, should treat the LDS Church as a friend and essential partner in advancing the social, cultural and economic progress of the state. The Tribune must ever cover the LDS Church in the news in meticulous objectivity, striving never to needlessly embarrass the church or its leaders. When it or they embarrass themselves in this manner that affects the general public then, of course, the Tribune must report the facts.”34

  Some observers said the Tribune's lawyers at the firm of Jones, Waldo, Holbrook & McDonough should have examined the veto clause more rigorously during the sale in 1997. “I told the Tribune owners they should be using a take-no-prisoners law firm from out of state,” said Jay Shelledy. “They [the local firm] will only go so far because of local clients who are members of the church or are influenced by the church. They've got to live here.”35

  Suits and countersuits were initiated in December 2000, filed in federal and state courts. The family owning the Tribune, as well as its managers, asked rescindment of the Tribune sale to Singleton. The Deseret News sought veto power in a state court jury trial to block any future sale of the Tribune by the family and to transfer all litigation to state courts.36

  The Utah State Supreme Court moved jurisdiction back to Salt Lake County District Court, and eventually the case went to federal court.

  In October 2001, Jack Gallivan wrote a memo to billionaire industrialist Jon Huntsman, an active Mormon and father of Jon M. Huntsman Jr. (who would become governor of Utah, US ambassador to China, a 2012 presidential candidate, and in 2017 ambassador to Russia).37 In his memo, Gallivan pleaded with the elder Huntsman to buy the Tribune. Gallivan explained how the JOA between the Tribune and the News had been the most successful JOA partnership in the United States in profitability and in its maintenance of historical circulation averages and share of market circulation:

  The determination of the LDS Church, owner of the Deseret News, to block Tribune Publishing Company ownership of the Tribune and continued management of NAC cannot, therefore, be a business reason. Repeated requests by Dominic Welch and me for meetings with the First Presidency to discover the real reason have been denied “on advice of counsel.”

  It can only be concluded that the true reason for the LDS Church to block the sale is its desire to silence the newspaper voice that has been the balance wheel of Utah for 100 years and the salvation of the Deseret News for 50 years.

  The solution: you, Jon, purchase the Tribune and, 1) save the LDS Church world-wide embarrassment. 2) restore and preserve peace in this community. 3) Make yourself an excellent investment and maximize your leadership power to promote the social, cultural and economic welfare of the State of Utah for the well-being of all its people.38

  The Huntsman name would come up with recurring frequency during the years 2012–2016 as a suitor for the purchase of the Tribune after Singleton went bankrupt. The Huntsman family wanted it. The church didn't want them to have it. It seems Jon Huntsman Sr. had enemies among the church's First Presidency. For Jack Gallivan, the sale and the events around it was a disaster: “My mission in life is maintaining control and ownership in that newspaper” for Senator Kearns's descendants. “If I fail, then my life's effort is a failure.”39

  On December 1, 2000, Singleton walked into the lobby of the Tribune Building to announce that AT&T had accepted his offer to buy the newspaper.40

  “The next day Tribune editorial page editor Randy Frisch's desk was cluttered with gifts left by consoling colleagues: a lit religious candle, and a voodoo doll with a picture of Singleton. ‘Pins are inside,’ read a note.”41

  Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host.

  But anger is like fire. It burns it all clean.

  —Maya Angelou

&nb
sp; The McCarthey family, heirs to Senator Thomas Kearns and owners of the Salt Lake Tribune for nearly a hundred years, insisted they had a buy-back option that was valid. As far as they were concerned Singleton was an interloper and the church had turned its back on a partnership that had endured since 1952.

  On July 30, 2001, Philip McCarthey climbed up on a reporter's desk and addressed the Tribune staff: “I object like hell to some outsider coming in here who doesn't know this community.”1

  “The five McCarthey siblings had been dubious about the TCI merger from the beginning. Tom McCarthey, older brother to Philip, writing in early 1997, said ‘Once ownership of the paper is out of our hands, it seems highly unlikely that we would ever see it again. Are these honorable people we are dealing with?’”2

  There have always been whispers about the mutual disdain between the LDS Church and the Roman Catholic McCartheys. The McCartheys felt wronged, and they were not about to give up. They continued to seek legal regress, their attorneys focusing on the validity of the repurchase agreement.

  While the sprawling suit worked its way through the courts, the McCartheys, with Dominic Welch, Randy Frisch, and others, continued to run the paper under the management banner of Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Company (SLTPC), with Singleton on the outside looking in. By now the spikey dispute had spilled onto the pages of both newspapers. “The Tribune's editorial pages became more strident as the paper's ownership grappled with the prospects of a Singleton takeover,” the Columbia Journalism Review reported.3

  An article in the Tribune quoted Dean Singleton as telling Tribune management, “You will not win against me and the Deseret News with a Mormon judge.” Dominic Welch confirmed the quote, while Singleton denied it.4

  The Tenth Circuit Court reviewed the case and upheld the veto power of the Deseret News.“But deep in the decision the court went out of its way to make a rather startling point,” the Columbia Journalism Review noted. The court thought the McCartheys could very well win at trial.5

 

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