Albert C. Jones looks at the Wasatch Front as an increasingly multicultural society, abandoning its white-bread image.
"Utah, I know, is an exceptional place, blending all people," Jones said. "I believe the Wasatch Front is becoming an international (center), like Toronto."
Jones, a relatively recent arrival to Utah himself, sees a need for a multicultural voice in a state that was 9 percent minority in 1990 and is estimated at 16 percent minority today, according to the census.
"With the influx of minorities, I feel like there's a need to be the vehicle for us to get to know each other," said Jones, who is black and an 18-year veteran reporter whose newspaper career started in Pontiac, Mich.
Jones came up with the idea for The Diversity Times, a newspaper he hopes will be that voice. The goal, according to the inaugural edition, is "to be a witness of this wonderful multiculturalism that is becoming our state, reporting about its people, news and views from all vantage points."
Launched in June, the free monthly paper's July edition is now available at locations including Salt Lake City Main Library and a few other branches, faith-based organizations and Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores along the Wasatch Front. Jones' goal is to expand his circulation from the current 10,000 to 50,000.
"Everybody can be included," he said. "It's not a typical ethnic newspaper. . . . To have a true multicultural experience is to learn where people are raised, where they come from."
The first edition's cover stories were about the International Rescue Committee's role as one of three Utah organizations helping refugees to resettle; a conference hosted by the Utah Chapter of the Conference of Minority Transportation Officials; and a Brigham Young University student who earned a National Association of Broadcasters Education Foundation scholarship.
Utah has a long history of ethnic papers, including a few black-owned papers published as early as the 1890s, said Philip Notarianni, director of the Division of State History.
The papers are typically targeted at a specific ethnic group, he said, and many are short-lived.
"What they're going to be dealing with is not just one particular group but various groups," he said of The Diversity Times. "It's going to depend on their ability to reach all those groups and to serve a need. . . . If there's a need for it and people want it, it's going to survive."
The paper's angle of diversity in general is one that Utah's longtime minority community leaders say is fairly unique, at least in Utah.
Jeanetta Williams, president of the Salt Lake Branch NAACP and the Utah chapter of the transportation-officials group, hopes the paper will fill an important niche by reporting events that "may not get into the larger papers. . . . It's a good opportunity for him and for the community as well."
Frank Cordova, director of the Utah Coalition of La Raza and a member of Salt Lake County's Council on Diversity Affairs, said he likes the concept, but the first edition seemed mostly focused on African-American culture.
"It's a heck of a good idea," Cordova said. "Like anything else, it's going to take some work and some time."
The paper's staff itself is multicultural. In addition to publishing The Diversity Times, Jones is pastor of marketing and public relations at New Pilgrim Baptist Church.
Contributing writer Odessa Eggett is an immigrant from Roatan, an island off the coast of Honduras. Eggett, who wrote a piece about her native island in the inaugural edition, says she likes the paper's focus on "bringing the community to the diverse population."
"I'm black, Hispanic, Caribbean, anything you want to call me," she said. "Living here can be hard, there are so few minorities. . . . For Caucasians, Utahns, it will be good to pick up a paper and read about the diverse community."
The paper's intern, Ancherie Swenson, describes herself as "as white as they come." Swenson, who works at the Salt Lake Library, said she likes the paper's focus.
"There are a lot of diverse papers that focus on one group, like Eastern Trends or La Prensa," she said. "I think this one is aiming at everyone. That is a niche that needs to be filled."
E-mail: dbulkeley@desnews.com