The Tribune vs. the Church

The Deseret News was founded in eighteen fifty on the orders of Brigham Young, who wanted a press in the territory regardless of cost, and who used it to communicate church policy, defend church governance, and shape the territory's public conversation from the beginning. It is one of the oldest newspapers west of the Missouri River, and it has been owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for its entire history.

The Salt Lake Tribune was founded in eighteen seventy for the specific purpose of fighting the first paper. It began as a mouthpiece for dissident Mormons, became the Utah Magazine, became the Mormon Tribune, and then the Salt Lake Tribune. Three investors from Kansas bought it in eighteen seventy-three and, in the words of the Utah History Encyclopedia, promptly launched a campaign of anti-Mormon vitriol. The Tribune attacked polygamy. It attacked theocratic governance. It referred to the Deseret News as "Granny." The News called the Kansas investors "border ruffians."

The warfare between the two papers lasted generations. It was also, from eighteen fifty-two, a warfare between two different visions of what Utah was: a religious commonwealth running its own affairs, or an American territory subject to the same federal authority as everyone else.

In nineteen fifty-two, the two papers entered a joint operating agreement, merging their printing and production while keeping separate newsrooms. The alliance lasted sixty-eight years. In twenty twenty, the Tribune ended it. Today the Tribune is an independent nonprofit, and the Deseret News is still owned by the church. The fundamental disagreement that produced both papers in the nineteenth century has not been resolved. It has just been put behind paywalls.