New ownership in Salt Lake

But Salt Lake isn't Denver and neither the Rocky or the Post were owned by a church that uses part of its publication to distribute church-related content.

Anyway, this is not worth arguing about.

 

You are right. I tend to overague points. This is not worth arguing about. Especially since the larger question of how many ships in Salt Lake are sinking remains to be answered. At those subscription levels it would be hard to support one quality newspaper, much less two.

 

I think the operative word there is "quality."

I wonder, has the Deseret News always had a larger circulation there than the Salt Lake Tribune?

I wouldn't have thought so, and, even in the LDS-based city, for some reason, it surprises me that the LDS-funded paper has numbers that much, relatively speaking, higher now.

 

Not sure about the history of the circulation numbers relative to one another, but what I do know is the Deseret News isn't in any trouble of disappearing. The LDS Church owns it and uses it as a pretty extensive PR arm (as it does with KSL, the TV station it owns in the market), and it pours plenty of money into it. For example, when the LDS Church prophet just went on a world tour, both the newspaper and the TV station had reporters along every step of the way. That kind of money doesn't get spent if the Deseret News is considered to be in any kind of financial trouble.

 

I read somewhere, maybe Wikipedia, that the Tribune had higher weekday circulation but the Deseret News had higher Sunday circulation at the time Huntsman bought the Tribune.

 

The Trib has traditionally had higher circulation numbers, which may explain the larger newsroom staff. I'd be shocked if the Deseret News had a newsroom of anywhere close to the 90 that The Trib reportedly has.

 

Does anyone know what the staffing of the Deseret News is. As a sample, how big are the respective sports staffs.

 

About nine or ten deep on writers at both the Trib and the D-News. D-News also has a few web producers.

 

The Salt Lake Tribune announced today it has laid off 34 people in its newsroom, which is more than one-third of its editorial operation. While necessary given what how far its circulation has sunk, that's a huge number for a statewide paper of record. Best of luck to all of them moving forward. Problem is, three of the four other biggest papers in the state have undergone the same thing in the past two years (Ogden, Provo, St. George) so there are not many nearby options at this point.

 

So far, I know the Salt Lake Tribune cuts include at least two people in sports -- Jay Drew, who was there for 20-plus years, most recently as the BYU beat guy, and Lynn Worthy, a relative newcomer whom I don't know much about. I also know that Paul Rolly, a longtime news columnist, was among the cuts.