What's going on here? In recent editorials, and in legal action in federal court, the Salt Lake Tribune has claimed that the Deseret News is attempting to seize control of the Tribune. the News, and its owner, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, denied the claim.

No doubt we will hear much more about this development. It is being reported widely outside of our state--the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Associated Press all have carried stories. On the heels of the Main Street controversy, the allegations that the LDS church is engineering a virtual journalistic monopoly in Utah presents a public relations challenge to the church, especially as the eyes of the world turn to Utah as the host of the 2002 Olympics.

Although the LDS church claims 70 percent of the Utah citizens are Mormon, it is significant that the secular Tribune is preferred two to one over the sacred News. This may be a function of distribution--the advantage of a morning versus an afternoon paper--but it could also be that Utah readers prefer a more independent voice. It is worth noting that newspapers have figured prominently in the history of the LDS church. Before the Deseret News, the Latter-day Saints relied heavily upon such church papers as the Times and Seasons, and Millennial Star. The printing press was a powerful tool of political activism. Indeed, the murder of Joseph Smith may be seen as the culmination of events which involved the church's destruction of a rival, and critical, press in Nauvoo, Illinois. As mayor of Nauvoo, Joseph Smith ordered the destruction of the press of the Nauvoo Expositor after publication of a single issue. The Nauvoo Expositor's reports which so incited the fury of the Mormons were exposes of the secret practice, and teaching, of polygamy, and of the coronation of Smith as King of the secret Council of Fifty. Although Smith denied both allegations, both were true.

We can only hope that the LDS church leadership has learned more tolerance in the intervening years. If not, perhaps a public outcry and a boycott of corporate partners and owners of the Deseret Newswould convey the message: We are a people who cherish the First Amendment; we remember our history.

--Richard Garrard