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Who Owns Them?

The Tribune is owned by Digital First Media (Digital First Media, 2014).

 

How Many Are Owned By The Same Company?

Digital First Media owns “more than 800 multi-platform companies,” including the Tribune (Digital First Media, 2014).

 

Are They Owned By Independent Sources?

The Salt Lake Tribune is owned by Digital First Media, but they attempt to remain true to their motto, “Utah’s Independent Voice since 1871” (Library of Congress, 2014).

 

Annual Revenue?

Since the Tribune is independently owned, it’s hard to find their annual revenue information. However, the Deseret News made a new profit arrangement for their joint operating agreement with the Tribune in 2013 which reflected the Tribune’s 50 percent revenue drop. The paper has faced “economic turbulence” recently and was forced to cut 40 percent of its staff in 2011 (Poore, 2013).

 

Where Do They Get Their Revenue?

The Salt Lake Tribune gets its revenue from print and online subscriptions. Their advertising is controlled by MediaOne of Utah, a company that does the advertising for the Deseret News and many other newspapers and magazines in Utah (MediaOne, 2014).

 

What’s their reader/viewer share?

110,546 was the reported daily circulation number in 2012. Their reported sunday circulation was 140,628 (Beaujon, 2012).

 

Is there a particular story that “made” this news venue particular popular?

The Salt Lake Tribune was started by three ex-communicated Mormons, and was well-known as a newspaper that opposed the Church. When the Tribune started to have financial troubles, the original publishers had to sell to three men from Kansas. These men saw that opposing the church was profitable, and thus continued their reputation of being an anti-LDS newspaper. One story that clearly defined their stance on the LDS church was a story published the day after Brigham Young, the second LDS prophet, passed away. They said of Young: “by the system of terror he adopted, by his arrogant assumption of Divine power, by his unscrupulous use of the ignorance and credulity of his followers was...able to kill all dissensions in the fold” (Library of Congress, 2014).

 

Was there a story that this news venue is particularly well known for scooping?

On June 30, 1956, two airliners crashed over the Grand Canyon and 128 passengers were killed. The Tribune was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for “local reporting under the pressure of edition time” (Poore, 2013). They are also known for their coverage of the John Swallow scandal (Wroble, 2013).

 

How does the news site frame itself?

The Salt Lake Tribune calls itself “Utah’s independent voice since 1971.”On its Facebook page, it says the Tribune is “Utah's largest newspaper and most popular news web site.” (Salt Lake Trib.., Facebook). It seems the Tribune frames itself as an unbiased, independent news service that is extremely popular in Utah.

 

How is it perceived?

Although it has since renounced its stigma of Utah’s anti-Mormon newspaper, it is still often perceived as more liberal and less sensitive to Mormon values than its rival, The Deseret News.

 

 

 

 

 

 

GRADE: 65.82% D

Stories:

  1. President will bypass congress and order his own federal action

  2. Utah’s use of student data ranks in top 10

  3. For His Brothers

  4. Leaders leave Vatican with renewed hopes

  5. Vets’ moms to Congress: Boost suicide prevention

  6. Are Millenials savers? Studies say yes and no

  7. Utah members of congress slam Obama’s refusal to work with legislators

Day 1: November 19, 2014

Stories:

  1. Obama to critics: You don’t like my move? Pass a bill

  2. Plan to spare millions from deportation sets up a fight with Congress

  3. Utah Latinos applaud Obama’s action

  4. Dalai Lama to return to Utah

  5. Ex-Utah A.G. facing an additional felony charge

  6. St. Louis region prepares for Ferguson decision

Day 2: November 21, 2014

GRADE: 73.93% C

GRADE: 58.65% F

Stories:

  1. Panel: Bring back firing squads

  2. Support grows for shutting off NSAs water

  3. ‘Either way, we need to find her’

  4. Officials say numbers work for public land takeover

  5. Obama ready to act alone on immigration

  6. People names Hemsworth ‘sexiest man’

  7. New U.S. ambassador to Moscow faces tough job

  8. 4 Taliban militants killed in failed Afghan attack

Day 3: November 20, 2014

(Salt Lake Tribune, 2014)

The Salt Lake Tribune pulled off a D average among all three days, which is a score similar to the paper’s rival, the Deseret News. For the most part, the Tribune was good at including core stories that would be meaningful to the community they serve. On Saturday, they included several stories about Obama’s immigration announcement. Many were extremely emotionally-charged. Empathy is an important part of social impact, according to McManus, as it reminds us that we are “interdependent and need each other to flourish as humans” (272).

 

Many stories in the Tribune seemed to struggle with fairness and diversity, especially in Saturday’s edition, which had the lowest overall score of all three days. The Saturday paper was interesting because many stories were about the same topic -- Obama’s immigration announcement --  but each took a different point of view. Although each story was biased toward one individual group, the culmination of all of them in the paper showed a diverse picture of a situation that would have been challenging to fit into a single story.

 

While this was an interesting way of approaching the topic, it is important to note that the Tribune publishes most of their stories online. If someone were to click on one of the stories without knowing about the other, they would see a very biased side of the situation. It may not have been wise to write multiple stories that only support one group’s opinion and risk someone reading one story and not getting the full picture.

 

Although many individual stories were not up to par with McManus’s grading scale, I think the paper as a whole was diverse and made an attempt to represent the voice of the people. The Tribune calls itself “Utah’s Independent Voice.” It’s apparent that the Tribune was working toward that goal.

Analysis

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