Very reliable sources at the SL Tribune indicate that some records and people have been subpoenaed by the U.S. Dept of Justice relative to the New Joint Operating Agreement and its clarification issued by the Deseret News on April 21, 2014. To the uninformed, this is a highly complex matter that includes the history of newspaper publishing and specifically the Utah market. The Deseret News is a wholly-owned media asset of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints also known as the Mormon church. In most cases in American business, federal anti-trust laws preclude interfering or tampering with the marketplace. The Newspaper Preservation Act of 1970, signed into law by Richard Nixon, carved out a very limited exception to the anti-trust laws for the purpose of preserving two (or more) editorial voices within a newspaper market. This is when Joint Operating Agreements allowed two competitors to combine their business and printing operations while maintaining separately managed newsrooms. If you want my long read, from July 2011, when the documentary film Page One made a stir at the Sundance FF, its a backgrounder that still holds up and is referenced here. At the end of the clarification on the New JOA issued by Clark Gilbert of the DesNews, it states, It is the responsibility of news organizations to innovate and adapt to the evolving media landscape. This may well be, but there are many dailies in the U.S. which are still grappling with that adaptation and many that have perished. As an independent media organization, the Tribune has historically had the majority of readership, circulation and sales in Utah, but now it is being forced to rely on only a portion of the revenue that it has nurtured and generated for many years. Many say that this is largely the result of predatory behaviour and a church that wants to silence its critics using the ideological concept of competition.
Posted on: Fri, 16 May 2014 19:12:28 +0000