Judge Won't Step Down in 'Salt Lake Trib' Case

By: Updated at 4:57 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, March 24

(AP) A federal judge has denied a request by the former parent company of The Salt Lake Tribune to excuse himself from the case involving the Tribune's sale to MediaNews.

The Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co. called on U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart to step away from a 2-year-old lawsuit over the sale of the Tribune because Stewart is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns the Deseret News. The Deseret News is a partner in distribution and advertising with MediaNews, the owner of the Tribune since last year.

The afternoon Deseret News has exercised an option that is part of its joint operating agreement with the Tribune to block the sale of the Tribune to parties it saw as being unfavorable to its switch to morning publication.

When MediaNews President Dean Singleton took over Tribune management Aug. 1, 2002, he almost immediately cleared the way for the Deseret News to switch to morning publication. The Deseret News begins publishing certain editions in the morning on March 31, and it will publish all editions in the morning by June 9.

The Salt Lake Tribune Publishing Co., which formerly owned the Tribune, argued that Stewart had an interest in the Deseret News switch to morning publication because his church owned the paper and most likely will profit from the switch to morning.

"No reasonable person could believe that any outcome of this case would in any way affect me personally, financially, or in any other way," Stewart wrote in his ruling.

The Tribune Publishing Co. also argued that Stewart knew about a rumored sale of the Tribune to the Deseret News before his judgeship began, when he was an aide in Gov. Mike Leavitt's office. The publishing group claimed that Stewart and Leavitt discussed a phone call from then-Tribune-owner AT&T.

"It is possible that the governor did share the content of a conversation about a proposed purchase of the newspaper with my successor, but I am confident that he did not share it with me," Stewart said. "The contemplated transaction of a sale or one of the two major daily papers to the other is not something that I, or any reasonable person, would have forgotten, had its possibility been conveyed to me."

The publishing company seeks to enforce a 1997 option agreement it believes gives the McCarthy family, former owners, the right to purchase the Tribune from MediaNews, which has no interest in selling the paper back to its former owners.

Stewart has validated the option but ruled it cannot be exercised without the consent of business partner Deseret News. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last month upheld the News' veto right. The case is scheduled for trial in November.