Trahant Named To Publisher's Post p. 20

By: M.L. Stein

MARK N.TRAHANT, executive news editor of the Salt Lake Tribune, has been named editor and publisher of the Daily News of Moscow, Idaho, and Pullman, Wash.
Trahant is believed to be the first Native American to hold that position at a mainstream newspaper.
Trahant, 38, a member of the Shoshone-Bannock tribe, also is a former desk reporter for the Arizona Republic and was publisher of the weekly Navajo Nation Today.
At the Republic, his investigative series, "Fraud in Indian Country," a review of federal Indian policy, won the George Polk Award in National Reporting, the Heywood Broun Award and the Paul Tobenkin Memorial Prize from Columbia University.
In 1995, Trahant was a Visiting Professional Scholar at the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University, where he wrote a book, Pictures of our Nobler Selves, a history of Native American contributions to the news media.
At the Daily News, Trahant succeeds R.C. "Randy" Frisch, 37, who was promoted to general manager of the Kearns-Tribune Co., the parent firm of the Salt Lake Tribune. The company also publishes the Lewiston (Idaho) Morning Tribune, the Daily Tribune in Sparks, Nev., and the Colfax (Wash.) Gazette and Bulletin. Frisch began his career 18 years ago in the Morning Tribune's circulation department, later becoming a reporter for the paper and then editor and publisher of the Sparks Tribune.
Salt Lake Tribune editor James E. Shelledy said about Trahant: "He's a blue-chip journalist and excellent with people. The only downside to his move is that it will leave a very big void here."
Theresa Lumbar, acting executive director of the Native American Journalists Association, told E&P that, to the group's knowledge, Trahant is the first Native American to be publisher of a general circulation newspaper.
"That's wonderful news," she added.
Both appointments were made by Kearns-Tribune publisher Dominic Welch.