Executives of the Salt Lake Tribune were locked in conflict Friday with their owner, AT&T Broadband, as well as their pending owners, MediaNews Group, following AT&T's announcement that it had agreed to sell the Tribune to the Denver-based newspaper group. AT&T termed the paper a "non-strategic asset."

Early Friday, Tribune executives ejected from their offices AT&T representatives who had come to Salt Lake City to announce the sale and later refused to allow those representatives and MediaNews Chief Executive Officer W. Dean Singleton to meet with Tribune employees to discuss the sale.

Related links and archive stories:

Media NewsGroup press release

AT&T press release

Salt Lake Tribune

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AT&T sale of Tribune announced

Deseret News seeks 'level playing field'

What is LDS Church's involvement with the Deseret News?

Deseret News 1850-2000

After receiving pressure from AT&T lawyers, they recanted and agreed to a late afternoon meeting with a small group of Tribune representatives. The Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co., LLC, the paper's management group, filed suit in federal court Friday against AT&T Corp. and AT&T Broadband & Internet Services, LLC, to stop the sale of the newspaper to MediaNews Group.

In an interview with the Deseret News, Tribune General Manager Randy Frisch charged that "Mr. Singleton is a front for the Deseret News," an allegation that Singleton, a staunch Baptist, rejected as "mind-boggling."

"We respect and admire the Deseret News and the (LDS) Church, and we look forward to being their partner in the JOA (the joint operating agreement involving the papers and the Newspaper Agency Corp.), but they are in no way involved in our purchase of the Tribune," Singleton said.

The only reason that he even discussed the deal with Deseret News management, Singleton said, is the fact that, under his organization's reading of the JOA contract, the Deseret News must approve the sale of the JOA's interests before any sale can go forward.

The First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints also dismissed Frisch's claim, saying it "denies any and all accusations that Mr. Dean Singleton and MediaNews Group, who are reported to have purchased The Salt Lake Tribune, are acting as a front for the church."

L. Glen Snarr, chairman of the board of Deseret News Publishing Co., also denied that the newspaper is a party to the purchase but noted that the deal will mean MediaNews will replace AT&T as joint owner of the NAC, which provides circulation, advertising and production services for both the Deseret News and the Tribune under the joint operating agreement. The Deseret News and the Tribune each owns one-half of the NAC.

Snarr said both newspapers will continue to be edited separately, with neither having any influence or control over the editorial content of the other.

Snarr said the Deseret News was invited by AT&T to submit an offer to buy the Tribune property but declined to make a bid.

"We do not want to own or control the Tribune in any way," Snarr said. "Neither MediaNews Group nor the Deseret News will have any affiliation with the other except through the JOA."

AT&T acquired the Tribune when it bought TeleCommunications Inc. last year. TCI had acquired the Tribune in 1997. Prior to that year, the newspaper had been owned and operated for decades by the Kearns-Tribune Corp., a closely held company composed mostly of the heirs of Utah Sen. Thomas Kearns.

MediaNews said in a statement Friday that it ". . . looks forward to joining with the Deseret News to assure the growth and prosperity of both newspapers."

The chain, which owns 48 daily newspapers and 94 non-dailies in 12 states, would not disclose the price it will pay AT&T for the Tribune but said it expected the deal to be completed by the end of the month.

Representatives of Kearns-Tribune said they would fight the sale in court, asserting that their own right to buy the paper was being ignored by both AT&T and MediaNews. In legal papers filed Friday afternoon in U.S. District Court for Utah, the Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co. said a 1997 agreement entitled it to purchase the paper.

In the suit, the paper's executives said they would have negotiated a "prohibition of the sale" of the Tribune but were assured by TCI officials that "because of the encumbrance of the management and option agreements to be entered there was no possibility that a buyer would want to purchase the ownership."

Further, the management company said that throughout recent weeks Tribune officials believed they were negotiating with AT&T for a purchase agreement. But Friday they were notified by AT&T officials that the company's board of directors had approved the sale to MediaNews Group.

The Tribune management company also said it fears that the proposed sale would enable the Deseret News to force changes to the JOA and that the Deseret News will "likely become the profitable, and possibly sole surviving, newspaper in Salt Lake City."

Snarr met recently with Singleton, who is also vice chairman and president of MediaNews Group, and came away convinced he will be "a friendly partner" who won't stand in the way of the Deseret News' long-stated desire to go to morning publication seven days a week.

"We will go morning," Snarr said.

Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co. officials reacted strongly Friday to announcement of the sale, saying it is nothing more than the Deseret News trying to gain control of the rival paper through a cooperative third party.

Frisch also said Wall gave the Tribune executives "a list of demands" three weeks ago. Those demands, Frisch said, comprised numerous concessions in management and control of the NAC that Singleton had promised Wall if the News would encourage AT&T to sell.

Wall said that during negotiations with the Tribune, Frisch requested a full list of what the Deseret News wanted to reach resolution on. The list mentioned by Frisch was a response to that request.

Wall, who is LDS, said his coming to the Deseret News this fall was not part of any strategy. Wall came to the Deseret News from the MediaNews-owned Denver Post. He said that from his experience working for Singleton and MediaNews Group, he expects the two newspapers to have a "comfort level" and be "equitable" partners.

AT&T owns the paper, but management of the Tribune is carried out by the Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co., owned by a group dominated by the Kearns family.

Board member Phil McCarthey, a great-grandson of Thomas Kearns, said "we will do whatever legal recourse is necessary to keep the Salt Lake Tribune owned locally and by the (Kearns) family."

He said the entire sale boiled down to the Deseret News trying to change, in its favor, the joint operating agreement with the Tribune.

Not so, Singleton said.

"AT&T asked us to make a bid for Kearns-Tribune. We did. They accepted it. We asked Deseret News if they would approve it and they said they would. So other than asking for that consent, we have no involvement with either the Deseret News or the LDS Church."

The Tribune has been sold twice before, once to TCI Inc. and again to AT&T, both times without approval of the Deseret News, which Deseret News management believes were violations of the JOA. MediaNews is the first buyer to honor the JOA contract by asking permission of the Deseret News.

Singleton wouldn't comment on what he thought Kearns-Tribune's chances are of stopping the sale other than to say AT&T believes it has the right to sell to anyone it wants.

"And after reviewing all the documents, we agree. We don't see any reason why this won't go forward and be completed. But (Vice President Al Gore) has proven that anyone can file a lawsuit. Every citizen has the right to file a lawsuit and every citizen has the right to lose."

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Asked about McCarthey's comment that MediaNews would only be allowed to keep the Tribune for 18 months before being required to sell it back to Kearns-Tribune, Singleton said everyone has the right to interpret agreements any way they want, adding, "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

As the owner of the Park Record newspaper in Park City — a personal investment that is not part of MediaNews — Singleton is no stranger to the Utah news market. He also owns a printing company in Utah and has been doing business here since 1984.


Contributing: Maria Titze, Alan Edwards.

E-mail: max@desnews.com

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