Damn. It looks to me like I just missed the best reunion since Sherman got together with Atlanta.

—Susan Elizabeth Phillips

In the autumn of 2015 Alden Capital/Digital First asked Utah Newspaper Project/Citizens for Two Voices to stay their discovery process for three months. A prospective buyer, whose name was secret, was negotiating to buy the Tribune.1

Citizens for Two Voices agreed to the stand-down in its lawsuit, hoping the Tribune could be removed from the grip of the venture capitalists. They particularly hoped the rumors were true that a local group or person would buy the paper. The buzz on the street was that industrialist billionaire Jon Huntsman Sr. was again negotiating to buy the Tribune.²

Weeks later, the rumored proceedings between Huntsman, Alden, and the church, gauzy with obfuscation, were revealed to have broken down.

Terry Orme, the publisher and editor of the Tribune since 2013, began secret meetings with Jon Huntsman Sr. in 2014. He was encouraged by Huntsman's desire to own the Tribune. Said Huntsman to Orme, “We're going to get this done.”³

Since Orme was in constant conflict with the budget cuts ordered by Alden/Digital First Media (DFM), he was anxious to see the paper change ownership. At one time he was told he was about to be fired by DFM in New York, only to be saved by a DFM human resources woman in Denver who fought for his retention. Meanwhile, Orme had grown to like Huntsman and was reassured by Huntsman's “hang in there, help is one the way” messages.⁴

There was one rough spot in the relationship between Orme and the Huntsman family: the publication by the Tribune of the book Mormon Rivals: The Romneys, the Huntsmans and the Pursuit of Power.5 The book, by two Tribune writers, told of the “friends-to-foes” relationship of the two families and how it culminated in the 2012 presidential campaign when Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman Jr. squared off as GOP contenders.

“They [the Huntsmans] didn't like the book. Jon Sr.'s wife, Karen [Karen Haight Huntsman], wrote a letter to the editor calling it ‘tabloid trash.’ We published it on a Sunday, but after that, things smoothed out again,” said Orme.⁶ He resumed his clandestine meetings with Huntsman Sr.

In the autumn of 2015, after the stand-down, Orme met with a much more pessimistic Jon Huntsman.

“The LDS Church had failed to negotiate in good faith,” according to Patty Henetz, a member of the board of the Utah Newspaper Project/Citizens for Two Voices. “The church used the stand-down to their benefit.”⁷

Henetz, in her years of reporting on the church, had a jaundiced view of the maneuverings of the LDS Church.

“You remember the parable of the frog and the scorpion?” said Henetz. “When the scorpion convinces the frog to carry it across the river, then stings the frog? The LDS Church is the scorpion. Of course the frog gets stung halfway over. When you ask, ‘Why did you sting me?’ they answer, ‘Because that's what scorpions do.’”⁸

Orme said that in the autumn of 2015 he felt like the deal might be dead.⁹ Huntsman had made several offers before (including in partnership with Dean Singleton, who had, through his original contract, an exemption from the veto clause held by the church). Alden was willing, but each offer was blocked. Only someone at the very top of the church hierarchy could do this—someone in the First Presidency. The questions were, who and why?

Dominic Welch said that when he was Tribune publisher he heard Huntsman speak with irony of his relationship with the church's higher-ups. He loaned the church his private Gulfstream jet, and church authorities flew all around the world on it. Yet Huntsman was blocked from positions on the church's business boards. Someone in the church hierarchy had it in for him.¹⁰

Jon Meade Huntsman Sr. is reportedly Utah's richest citizen. Born in 1937, he was a White House aide under Richard Nixon. Leaving government, he made billions by providing Styrofoam clamshells to McDonald's and panty hose containers to L'eggs. He is a philanthropist who has shed much of his wealth in the search of a cure and of treatments for cancer. Huntsman is widely recognized for his humanitarian giving. The Chronicle of Philanthropy placed Jon and Karen Huntsman second on their 2007 list of largest American donors to charity.11 His contributions to the homeless, the ill, and the underprivileged exceed $1.2 billion.

An active Mormon, Huntsman served as an LDS Area Seventy (one of the church's elite general authorities) from 1996 to 2011. He also served as president of the church's Washington, DC, Mission from 1980 to 1983.¹² His son, Jon Huntsman Jr., was elected Utah governor in 2004 and served till 2009. Jon Jr. was well regarded by both major political parties. He served as ambassador to Singapore in 1992–93 under George W. Bush, ambassador to China in 2009–2011 under Barack Obama, and ambassador to Russia under Donald Trump.¹³

Huntsman Sr. had eight other children, about whom the public knew little until 1987 when his son James, sixteen, was kidnapped by a classmate and held for $1 million ransom.¹⁴ James was successfully recovered by FBI agents, although one agent was stabbed during the rescue.

Many Americans had heard of Jon Huntsman Jr. due to his run for president in 2012. His daughter, Abby, was a television personality on MSNBC and later a general assignment reporter for Fox News.¹⁵

Few Utahns had heard of Jon Sr. and Karen's son, Paul Huntsman, an active Mormon who is CEO of the $1.1 billion Huntsman Family Investments. The sixth of Huntsman's nine children, he had appeared as a surrogate for his father at a number of charitable events.¹⁶

Jon Huntsman Sr., in a partnership with former owner Dean Singleton as previously mentioned, reportedly tried on several occasions to buy the paper as early as 2011, only to be thwarted at every turn.¹⁷

The obstructionist was reportedly Henry B. Eyring, first counselor to the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Eyring and Jon Huntsman Sr. had a long-standing enmity, origin unknown.¹⁸

Apparently aware of the enmity of Eyring, and holding an exemption to the veto power of the church, Singleton felt it best to make the first approach without Huntsman in about 2012, and offered $18 million. The church countered with $20 million. Singleton would not budge on the $2 million difference, and apparently fur flew.19 Singleton reportedly called Eyring “a prick to beat all pricks. He hates the Tribune.”²⁰

Jim Dabakis, the gadfly Democratic Utah legislator, announced in April 2016 that he was prepared to buy the paper.²¹ He claimed to have the backing of several wealthy Utahns. Dabakis had been a vocal critic of the Mormon Republican establishment.²² It stretched the imagination to visualize Dabakis going to the First Presidency of the LDS Church and asking them to approve his purchase of the Tribune.²³ However, he was part of the pressure on the church and may have proved an ally to the efforts of Citizens for Two Voices.

During the winter in early 2016, a blanket of pessimism settled over the Tribune deal. It looked like an obituary for the city's paper of record would soon be written.

“The church is just waiting until the current JOA runs out in 2020. The Trib will have nothing left but its masthead. No delivery system, no sales reps, no printing facility,” said Patty Henetz of Citizens for Two Voices.²⁴

At this point several members of Citizens for Two Voices saw the paper failing, probably before 2020.

Jill Lepore, writing about the “disruptive innovation” theories that seemingly influenced the church's moves against the Tribune in 2013, described it as a “theory about why businesses fail. It's not more than that. It doesn't explain change. It's not a law of nature. It's an artifact of history, an idea, forged in time; it's the manufacture of a moment of upsetting edgy uncertainty. Transfixed by change, it's blind to continuity. It makes a very poor prophet…. Forget rules, obligations, your conscience, loyalty, a sense of the commonweal. If you start a business and it succeeds…sell it and take the cash. Don't look back. Never pause. Disrupt or be disrupted.”²⁵ The attempted takeover of the Tribune had disrupted not only a newspaper but a community.

The church's botched attempt to still the voice of the Tribune had created a public relations disaster. No matter how the church's PR staff spun it, Mormonism was once again trying to silence the voice of a critic. Will Bagley, the Western historian, said it immediately brought to mind the 1844 burning of the Nauvoo Expositor.²⁶

The man who engineered the Tribune's 2013 sale, Clark Gilbert, was sent to Rexburg, Idaho, where he would run BYU Idaho and be out of the storm. Then came a surprise.

On April 20, 2016, Tribune readers awakened to a news story: “After almost three years of uncertainty about the Salt Lake Tribune's ownership and financial status, officials announced Wednesday that the Huntsman family is buying Utah's largest daily newspaper.”27 The article quoted Digital First Media's CEO Steve Rossi as having “great respect” for the new owners. (Rossi had replaced Paton.)²⁸

Ten paragraphs down was this assertion from officials of the Mormon Church:

“In a brief statement, the Utah-based faith said that ‘while The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not participated in negotiations relating to a sale of the Salt Lake Tribune by Digital First Media, we wish both the Deseret News and the Tribune the best as they move forward.’”²⁹

Paul Huntsman was the buyer. He made it clear that it was not his father or family buying the paper. He would assume the role of publisher.³⁰

The deal was forged behind the scenes, with pressure from the Department of Justice when it announced to all parties—the church, Alden/DFM, Citizens for Two Voices, and the buyer—that they wanted the deal done. They believed in the validity of the antitrust questions raised by O'Brien and her group. Each party had to sign off. Utah Newspaper Project/Citizens for Two Voices had to agree to drop their suit to allow the deal to be consummated.³¹

On April 27 the board of directors of the Citizens for Two Voices met in the offices of attorney Karra Porter and came face-to-face with the proposed buyer. Porter said that during the three-hour session the group grilled Huntsman, wanting to determine how he intended to run the paper. “Paul was honest. We got some answers we didn't want to hear, but it showed me his integrity,” said Porter.³²

“Paul Huntsman was very gracious,” said O'Brien. “I offered an olive branch and told him we were on the same side. We needed to be reasonable. But since the Department of Justice had already announced they wanted the deal done, we were hamstrung in terms of leverage to get the best deal.”³³

The Tribune's preferred solution would have been for the church to restore the Tribune's 58 percent profit in the JOA. Instead, the negotiators had to settle for 40 percent.³⁴ The settlement did not bring joy to the hearts of many who could run the numbers and from them and draw a picture of the future.

In February 2016, when the Tribune was getting 30 percent of the profits from the JOA, it showed a $1.9 million loss for that part of the fiscal year beginning June 2015, until the end of February 2016. By extrapolation that would mean the newspaper would lose at least $2 million for the fiscal year 2015–2016. To continue extrapolating, if the Tribune deal was increased to 42 percent (the old Deseret News share), it would lose about a million a year under current conditions. At 50 percent it would show an annual profit of $240,000, and at the Tribune's old rate of 58 percent of the JOA, it would show a profit of about $1.1 million.35

The 40 percent would buy the paper time, but little more.³⁶ The terms included a payment of an estimated $5 million by Huntsman.³⁷

Said O'Brien, “We signed off on the deal and dropped our suit because newspapers were dying everywhere, and we didn't want the Trib's obituary written. People's jobs were on the line. They were our friends.”³⁸

O'Brien said she personally had paid a high price for taking the case to court. There was stress. “My daughter had a grumpy mom. Tom [husband Tom Harvey] and I were on edge. I was so angry it made us crazy. But I couldn't start a fight and not see it through.”³⁹

All parties signed off on the deal, including the unhappy LDS Church and an unhappy Alden Global Capital, who had expected to continue to milk the Tribune until the cow was dead.

Said Karra Porter, “The case was one of the most gratifying experiences of my career.”⁴⁰

On June 3, 2016, Paul Huntsman printed a letter to readers in his new acquisition, saying, “Returning the ownership back to Utah could provide the Tribune the ability to think creatively, move quickly and celebrate its unique role in this state.”⁴¹

He praised the professionalism of the staff but warned that there was no clear path to financial success in the rapidly changing world of digital media. He finished by writing,

So let's now address the elephant in the room. I am an active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and have been a bishop. I make no apologies for this. I embrace the belief that Hindus, Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Jews, Muslims, Unitarians, atheists and every person of goodwill has a right to a shot at this planet's brass ring without undue pressure to change. I also believe in the independence of church and state and press.

So here is my promise to Utah: As long as I am the owner/publisher, the Salt Lake Tribune will never be held hostage by ideology, political persuasions, business pressure or particular dogma.

We will hold every person of influence and entities accountable for their actions as we will hold ourselves responsible for fairness, accuracy and independence.42

Paul Huntsman later said, “This is a generational investment for me…. The Salt Lake Tribune—and what we represent here in the community—is going to go on for generations.”⁴³

Former editor Shelledy had been consulting with the Huntsman family during the negotiations. On May 25, 2016, a blog, Utah Policy, intimated Shelledy might be brought back as editor.⁴⁴

Mickey Gallivan, son of the late publisher Jack Gallivan, was alarmed. He believed that Shelledy's prickly coverage of the LDS Church had amped up the maneuvering by the church to kill the Tribune. Also close to Huntsman Sr., Mickey Gallivan wrote to him that if they were thinking of returning Shelledy to the editorship, he hoped that Huntsman would reconsider. Huntsman Sr. wrote back, quoting a famous Mormon hymn: “All is well. All is well.”⁴⁵

“Mickey's never liked me,” said Shelledy, “and I have no intention of returning as editor of the Tribune.”⁴⁶

After Huntsman's purchase, Citizens for Two Voices wrote, “The events of the last three years should put to rest concerns that Paul Huntsman is a Deseret News stooge. In fact, Citizens for Two Voices alleged in its public-interest antitrust lawsuit that the Huntsmans were prevented from buying the Tribune in 2013, and the community got that rotten ‘Joint Operating Agreement’ instead.”⁴⁷

In spite of the church's refusal to deal with Huntsman Sr., he may have taken a role in the negotiations, if only as a consultant to his son. He was quoted in a May 13, 2016, Tribune article:

“He [Paul] actually spent more than a year and a half of his life being inundated with very tough negotiation points,” said the elder Huntsman. “And he did a terrific job of it and everybody trusted him and felt that his word was his bond.”…

Paul Huntsman said the extended family also agreed it made more sense for him to be the sole owner, because he lives in Utah and has no intention of ever moving. It also avoids the “too many chefs in the kitchen” problem if the newspaper decided to endorse a candidate or take a strong stand on its editorial page….

Paul Huntsman said a family as large and diverse as his would have a hard time reaching agreement on an editorial stand.48

The Huntsmans’ journey to purchase the Tribune was an arduous one. First, the Eyring factor came into play, and the church refused to deal with Jon Huntsman Sr. Several times during the negotiations lower-level church officials agreed to a deal; once the deal was taken “upstairs” for approval, it was rejected.⁴⁹ “We were never sure who at the church we were dealing with,” said Karra Porter.⁵⁰

And just who was Paul Huntsman?⁵¹

A University of Utah graduate, Paul moved to Australia to work for the family's chemical company. He moved to Houston for three years where eventually he became Huntsman's vice president responsible for base chemicals. He earned an MBA from Wharton, then worked for Deutsche Bank in New York City. Returning to Utah he worked for other family entities until becoming CEO of Huntsman Family Investments, of which his father is chairman.⁵²

Paul Huntsman is a cosmopolitan man but with deeply planted Utah roots. He is married to Cheryl Wirthlin Huntsman, and together they had eight children. Cheryl's parents, LeRoy and Mary Wirthlin, had seventeen children.⁵³

Paul runs in marathons, hikes, and likes to be outdoors. He is said to be quiet, even tempered, and without ego. He is a Republican, at least around the edges. His first political donation was to Elizabeth Dole in 1999, a friend of his father who was running for president. Ron Wyden, the Democratic senator from Oregon, was one of the recent recipients of his political donations.⁵⁴

“And I would say that socially the Huntsmans tend to be liberal, but fiscally they are conservative,” said one observer who knows the family well and wished to remain anonymous.⁵⁵

On Paul's Facebook page he “sided 81 per cent with Green candidate Jill Stein” (posted in 2012) and “likes the Colbert Report” (posted 2011).⁵⁶

Pat Bagley, the Tribune's political cartoonist, sat down for a private chat with Huntsman, emerging to say later, “I think he's a closet liberal.”57

Terry Orme, relieved to be back in his editor's role after Paul Huntsman became publisher, and George Pyle, the paper's liberal-leaning editorial writer, were talking at a garden party celebrating Huntsman's purchase of the paper three months earlier. The previous weekend had seen the mass shooting of gays at a nightclub in Orlando. During a Monday phone conference with Paul Huntsman, they presented the thrust of the next day's lead editorial: Pyle wanted to write a condemnation of the sale of automatic military weapons. There was a pause on the other end of the line. Said Huntsman, “Do you know you are talking to a man whose father-in-law gave him an AK-47 as a wedding gift?”⁵⁸

Orme and Pyle braced. Would he shut down the editorial? On the contrary, he gave his blessing to a blistering piece urging a ban on the sale of military-grade automatic weapons.⁵⁹

On Facebook's “Save the Tribune” pages Paul Huntsman wrote, “We hope to ensure the Tribune's independent voice for future generations and are thrilled to own a business of this quality and stature.”⁶⁰

Questions flew fast and furious. Was Paul Huntsman really interested in running the Tribune? Was Paul tapped to carry out his father's desire to own a newspaper? Jon Huntsman Sr. had always wanted a newspaper. He tried to buy the Deseret News years before.⁶¹

Would Paul Huntsman be a civic-minded, highly visual community leader like Jack Gallivan? Or would he become a hands-off publisher? Or somewhere in between?

Some Tribune staffers speculated that Paul Huntsman wanted to see reform within the LDS Church. His ownership of the Tribune could be influential. “He really believes that the Trib should be a counterbalance—and that's a tricky needle to thread,” said another staff writer who wished to remain anonymous.⁶²

Paul Huntsman underlined this in a statement: “We can assure you that the Tribune will never abandon its purpose as a watchdog over Utah's institutions of power; its positioning as a platform for vivid storytelling and its reputation as a voice for all Utahns.”⁶³

A note of dissonance was struck on July 29, 2016. Terry Orme resigned. He had been at the Tribune for thirty-nine years and had helmed the paper during its darkest times under Alden's ownership. He was “a reporter's editor,” said Tribune columnist Paul Rolly.64 Terry had a good reputation and was well liked by those who worked with him.

In July 2016, Orme had been called to Paul Huntsman's office. Winding down a discussion on possible political endorsements, Huntsman said he wanted to bring back Jennifer Napier-Pearce, a multimedia specialist who had recently left the Tribune to join the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics. Orme told Huntsman he wasn't sure Napier-Pearce would come back.⁶⁵

Then Huntsman told him he wanted to bring Napier-Pearce back to replace Terry as editor. He added that Terry could have “any position at the paper he wanted.”⁶⁶

Orme was stunned. He'd expected, as promised when Huntsman bought the paper, to stay on as editor. “I was out. That's what happens in business,” said Orme. “On reflection, I'd been there for thirty-nine years. It's healthy for the institution and for me. It's sort of necessary, really. And it's karmic. I laid off a lot of people as Alden and Digital kept insisting on cutbacks. For me to shed tears would be selfish. The irony is that under Alden I thrived and had a lot of fun. Then along comes the local billionaire who everyone wanted to own the paper, and I'm out the door.”⁶⁷ It was a decision that many lamented.

“Terry's departure ruined our happy ending,” said Joan O'Brien of Citizens for Two Voices.⁶⁸

Some Tribune staff threatened to quit in sympathy with Orme, but Orme cooled the idea. “It wasn't handled well,” said a former Tribune staffer who has an inside track at the newspaper.⁶⁹

Orme's replacement, Jennifer Napier-Pearce, was a multimedia maven with a master's degree from Stanford who had worked at the Tribune as well as for the local NPR station, KUER. According to Jay Shelledy, Napier-Pearce had not “intrigued for the job and was surprised when Paul Huntsman offered it.”⁷⁰ Napier-Pearce's public statement on taking the editorship was, “This is such a tremendous honor to rejoin an institution that I love with all my heart…. I owe a debt to Terry [Orme] and think he is the consummate professional and mentor.”⁷¹

Napier-Pearce was qualified to lead the Tribune into the digital frenzy. She was well liked and respected by local journalists. She took her place as editor on August 22, 2016, at a staff meeting at which both Paul Huntsman and his father spoke. The concern of some was that she had little experience as an editor, but on November 23, 2016, Matt Canham, a veteran staff writer, was named senior managing editor and would oversee day-to-day newsroom operations.72

Canham was charged with overseeing newsroom operations and content standards that will allow other editors to focus on cross-team investigative coverage and special projects.⁷³ She would also have the benefit of Tim Fitzpatrick's many years at the Tribune. He is the grandson of John F. Fitzpatrick and is executive vice president.

One of the immediate tasks of Huntsman and Napier-Pearce was to oversee improvements to the Tribune's dreadful website, which was begun in 1996. In 2008, when Dean Singleton still controlled both the Tribune and the JOA, he established a Tribune-owned company called Utah Digital Services (UDS) to handle the website. Content was provided by the Tribune staff. However, Singleton turned the UDS operation over to the JOA's advertising people so as to maximize profits from combination web and print buys. After Clark Gilbert assumed JOA control in 2013, UDS answered to Ad Taxi, the digital ad sales company of MediaNews Group/Digital First Media, who were wringing every penny out of the paper and giving lip service to the website. The Tribune staff had to provide content while being helpless as to the look, feel, and operation of its own website.⁷⁴

In the 2016 deal, Huntsman acquired control of UDS. “We are rebuilding the website from the ground up,” said Napier-Pearce. “We are using Arc Publishing tools from [Jeff] Bezos's Washington Post, and we've signed a local firm to do the design work. Additionally, we are going to have a new app that brings more personalization to the reader, and, eventually, perhaps a suite of apps.”⁷⁵

One initially voiced concern was that Napier-Pearce was an active Mormon, and the nuances of Mormon dealings can be reported in so many different ways.

To that Napier-Pearce responded, “I trust our reporters to do their jobs—to hold those in power responsible, be it the LDS Church, Rocky Mountain Power [Utah's electricity provider], or government. The Tribune's mission has not changed. I'm not pushing any personal agenda, and I want my reporters to do their jobs.”⁷⁶

On October, 3, 2016, the Tribune's front-page headline read, “Leaked LDS Videos Cause Stir.” The lengthy story helped allay concerns that the new owner and editor would give the church deferential treatment, although the story was not exclusively the Tribune's. The story told how fifteen secret videos shot from 2007 to 2012 showed high-level LDS Church leaders privately talking about hot-button issues. In the videos the leaders discuss espionage-convicted soldier Chelsea Manning's sexuality and increased proselytizing opportunities among Muslims since the US invasion of the Middle East.77 “They discussed issues ranging from politics to pot, the ‘homosexual agenda’ to the housing crisis, marriage to morality, Muslims to Kurds,” the Tribune reported.⁷⁸

Napier-Pearce had gone big on the story, signaling an independent future for the Tribune.

In the autumn of 2016 the newspaper editorialized in favor of Hillary Clinton for president; for US senator Mike Lee, a conservative Republican; for US congresswoman Mia Love, a conservative Republican, for US congressman Chris Stewart (brother to Judge Ted Stewart), a conservative Republican. Confounding this was the endorsement of a Democrat, Steven Tryon, who faced off against congressional gadfly, Republican Jason Chaffetz. (All incumbents were reelected, including Chaffetz.)⁷⁹

The endorsements were loaded with as many criticisms as plaudits; each had the feel of editorial writers holding their noses. This was Paul Huntsman's bailiwick, so the endorsements must be his responsibility.

Four months into her editorship, Napier-Pearce said, “There is a true sense of optimism on the staff. Paul [Huntsman] is a great guy, a great boss, and interested in what we are doing, but he is not a micromanager. He lets us do our job. There's not a reporter on staff who's had anything but encouragement from Paul.” As for Jon Huntsman Sr., who has visited the newsroom twice since Napier-Pearce came on board, “He's our greatest cheerleader. Paul has inherited his interest in newspapering.”⁸⁰ The Huntsmans, said Napier-Pearce, believe in the Tribune as an important institution for Salt Lake City and Utah.⁸¹

In April 2017, Jon and Paul Huntsman showed themselves unafraid to use the Tribune's news and editorial muscle to battle changes proposed by the University of Utah to the Huntsman Cancer Institute, which has received hundreds of millions of dollars from the Huntsman family. Vivian Lee, vice president of the university's hospitals and medical school, had dismissed the head of the Huntsman Cancer Institute, Mary Beckerle, with a “cowardly” email sent by university president David Pershing. Huntsman Sr. called it a “brutal power grab by Lee.”82 Huntsman Sr. minced no words during a KSL radio interview, proceeding to call the University of Utah president “pathetic” and a person who “should have been let go a long time ago.”⁸³

An April 24 editorial in the Tribune called for “new leadership at the University of Utah and its health sciences colleges.”⁸⁴

As a result of Huntsman media and financial pressure, Beckerle was reinstated; the president of the university resigned and so did the vice president of the school's hospitals and medical school.⁸⁵ Clearly the Huntsmans, through the Tribune, had extended the family's leverage in the community.

If the balance wheel of Salt Lake City is being restored, much credit goes to Joan O'Brien and her small group of determined newspaper people and their supporters who became the David that humbled the LDS Church's Goliath.

“We were always careful to refer to our foe as the Deseret News, not its owner, the LDS Church,” O'Brien said in a speech to the First Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City in June 2016.⁸⁶

In fact, the church and the News are impossible to separate.

It was a classic American story of a win by an underdog.