By: Paul Foy, AP Business Writer (AP)
The Salt Lake Tribune changed hands as the family that ran it for four generations tendered a bid to regain ownership.
MediaNews Group Inc. of Denver marked the takeover with an editorial in the
Tribune on Thursday promising it "will serve all of Utah and be beholden to no one."
The
Tribune's former owners had previously used those pages to excoriate MediaNews for making an alliance with the Mormon church-owned
Deseret News, the
Tribune's junior partner in a joint publishing arrangement.
MediaNews chief executive Dean Singleton, also publisher of
The Denver Post, has asked
Tribune Editor Jay Shelledy to stay on. Chief Operating Officer Randy Frisch, who was also the editorial page editor, has been fired.
Also Thursday, Phil McCarthey, chairman of the management group losing control of the
Tribune, notified MediaNews he was exercising an option to regain ownership of the paper.
The Deseret News is blocking that bid, which could take months to resolve. Singleton said Thursday he won't relinquish a paper that completes his Rocky Mountain empire.
MediaNews owns
The Denver Post and 48 other dailies. It had to wait until this week, when the McCartheys' management contract expires, to take full control of the
Tribune.
McCarthey and Frisch were forced to step aside after a federal appeals court refused on Tuesday to extend their management contract.
Singleton pledged to improve the
Tribune and keep watch on the considerable influence of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints over Utah affairs.
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