About Us
The Deseret News (www.deseretnews.com) is the first news organization and the longest continuously-operating business in the state of Utah. Owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Deseret News offers news, information, commentary, and analysis from an award-winning and experienced team of reporters, editors, columnists, and bloggers. Its mission is to be a leading news brand for faith and family oriented audiences in Utah and around the world.
Founded
Deseret News - History
The first issue of the Deseret News was published on June 22, 1850, in Salt Lake City, Utah by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Its first editor, Willard Richards, wrote the Deseret News Prospectus, a proposal for the new endeavor, with hopes of achieving at least 300 subscribers. Mormon settlers had arrived in the Salt Lake Valley less than three years earlier. Willard Richards arrived with Brigham Young in the first wagon train.
Previously, Richards had served as the personal secretary to Joseph Smith, founder of the Church. In fact, just six years before launching the Deseret News, Richards had witnessed first-hand the martyrdom of Joseph Smith at Carthage, Illinois. Richards served as the Deseret News' first editor from its founding until his death in 1854
The Deseret News Prospectus, June 22, 1850
Great Salt Lake City
(written May 15, 1850)
We propose to publish a small weekly sheet, as large as our local circumstances will permit, to be called, "Deseret News," designed originally to record the passing events of our State, and in connection, refer to the arts and sciences, embracing general education, medicine, law, divinity, domestic and political economy, and every thing that may fall under our observation, which may tend to promote the best interest, welfare, pleasure, and amusement of our fellow citizens.
We hold ourselves responsible to the highest Court of truth for our intentions, and the highest Court of equity for our execution. When we speak, we shall speak freely, without regard to men or party; and when, like other men, we err, let him who has eyes open, correct us in meekness, and he shall receive a disciple's reward.
We shall ever take pleasure in communicating foreign news as we have opportunity; in receiving communications from our friends, at home and abroad; and solicit ornaments for the "News" from our poets and poetesses.
The first number may be expected as early in June as subscriptions will warrant - waiting the action of 300 subscribers.
Terms, 6 months $2.50; invariably in advance.
Single copy, 15 cents.
A paper that is worth printing, is worth preserving; if worth preserving, it is worth binding; for this purpose we issue in pamphlet form; and if every subscriber shall preserve each copy of the "News," and bind it at the close of the volume, their children's children may read the doings of their fathers, which otherwise might have been forgotten; ages to come.
Mission
Mission and Products
The Deseret News is an operating company of Deseret Management Companies (DMC), wholly owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The mission of DMC is to be trusted voices of light and knowledge, reaching hundreds of millions of people.
The Deseret News plays an important part in achieving those goals, by offering products in print and online that address a growing interest in news that affects issues of family and faith in Utah and around the world.
Deseret News is the leading newspaper in Utah, offering a rich perspective on faith and family issues as well as in-depth local coverage of education, politics, business, and, of course, sports. Deseret News is proud of its in-depth coverage of high school and college sports across Utah, the Jazz and RSL, and special focus on BYU and the University of Utah.
The Deseret News offers three primary products:
Deseret News Local EditionFor subscribers in Utah along the Wasatch Front, the Deseret News is available for home delivery.
Deseret News National EditionFor subscribers outside of the Wasatch Front in Utah, the Deseret News National Edition is available as a companion to the LDS Church News.
DeseretNews.comDeseretNews.com is the leading newspaper website in Utah, with approximately 3 million unique visitors each month. Mobile browsers can also access a free mobile version at www.deseretnews.com/m/. Free mobile applications specifically designed for the iPhone and iPad are available in the iTunes store.
Milestones and Innovations
People
The Deseret News is produced by a team of journalists, photographers, editors, columnists, and bloggers who combine professional journalistic expertise with a unique perspective on the issues that matter to faith and family oriented audiences.
Staff members of the Deseret News have been awarded for their excellence by peers in the world of journalism and photography:
- Lois Collins and Doug Robinson, both enterprise journalists at the Deseret News, have each been awarded the Sigma Delta Chi award by the National Society of Professional Journalists.
- Sara Israelsen-Hartley, a newsroom journalist at the Deseret News, was named Best Newspaper Reporter in 2011 by the Utah chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.
- Jeffery Allred, a Deseret News photographer, has won a host of awards. He was most recently named Photographer of the Year (2010) by the Utah News Photographer Association and took first place in Photo Essay from the National Society of Professional Journalists (2010).
- Brad Rock, a well-known Deseret News sports writer, is a four-time Utah Sportswriter of the year. He has also received many other awards including first place in both column and features writing from the Professional Basketball Writers Association (PWBA).
In addition to those listed above, many other staff members have been recognized for outstanding work in the field of journalism.
The Deseret News also delivers content from writers and contributors from around the state of Utah and throughout the United States through its Deseret Connect initiative (www.deseretconnect.com). Editors work directly with these contributors to produce stories for print and online that offer unique perspective, insight, and expertise available nowhere else.
Editorial Voice
The Deseret News offers a unique and compelling voice in the din of local and national media. With its focus on faith and family oriented audiences, the Deseret News offers news, analysis, and commentary the flow from six core areas of editorial emphasis. They are:
The Family
Stable families have proven to be the most effective method for nurturing children, for teaching responsibility and morality, for refining adults and for stabilizing society. Because the family is so critical for the effective teaching of morality, justice, sociability and spirituality, the Deseret News reports on how contemporary events affect the family in general and your family in particular.
Faith in the Community
Active faith cultivates the habits of self-governance required for a successful democracy, for a strong civil society and overall human flourishing. It is essential that values emanating from religious belief be accorded equal access to public discourse. Accordingly, the Deseret News reports on how faith is lived within the community and how current trends affect religious practice.
Excellence in Education
Our global economy demands more effective, creative and productive workers. In order for our children to prosper, they require an excellent education that perfects their reasoning, communication, problem solving and skills. But more importantly, they require hearts capable of seeing and pursuing the common good even more effectively than their minds can pursue legitimate individual gain. The Deseret News shares insight into how families can tutor the hearts and minds of their children.
Financial Responsibility
Recent financial crises reveal the need for increased personal, corporate and public financial accountability. The daily financial choices we make represent where we stand on issues of self-discipline, trust, responsibility and stewardship. Through our reporting, analysis and commentary the Deseret News seeks to re-enshrine those mundane but bedrock character values of thrift and frugality. We hope this can help marshal the resolve to address our looming financial challenges and establish a culture of responsibility.
Care for the Poor
Because the lives of the poor are mostly lived in quiet desperation, it is far too easy to overlook how the poor are affected by our actions and policies. The Deseret News seeks to bring the concerns of the poor out of the shadows. But simply noticing the problem will not improve lives. In addition to raising awareness, we want to provide readers with tools that can address the root causes of poverty. We want to make readers aware of proven solutions that can help to relieve suffering and empower the dispossessed to meet their own needs and improve their lives.
Values in Media
Media that manipulates through violence and sexually explicit content comes with high social costs because it weakens our social fabric and destroys individual dignity. Consequently, the Deseret News is committed to warning families about media that would erode the fundamental character traits of compassion, courage and virtue that our readers value. Our hope is that the craft of today's cinematographers, animators, musicians and storytellers would be used to delight audiences with dazzling media that honors and enhances our moral sense.
In a world of shrinking newsrooms and challenging economic realities, the Deseret News continues to invest in content that matters to its audience.
Editorial Advisory Board
Pamela Atkinson
Pamela Atkinson has spent decades caring about homeless and low-income people and other vulnerable groups in the community. The Utah State Legislature and taxpayer donations fund the Pamela Atkinson Homeless Trust Fund, which provides money to various agencies as they help the homeless become self-sufficient. In 2007, her church, First Presbyterian Church of Salt Lake City, dedicated Pamela's Closet, which gathers donations of everyday items to be used in Atkinson's humanitarian work to the homeless.
Clayton M. Christensen
Clayton M. Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor, is consistently ranked as one of the world's leading thinkers on innovation. His New York Times best-seller "The Innovator's Dilemma" is perhaps the leading book on innovation in business. He has also written influential books on health care and education. Christensen is a graduate of BYU, Oxford University and Harvard and is a former Area Seventy for the LDS Church.
Sheri L. Dew
Sheri L. Dew is president and CEO of Deseret Book — the first woman to hold that position. She wrote the biographies of two LDS Church presidents, Gordon B. Hinckley and Ezra Taft Benson, and was second counselor in the LDS Relief Society from 1997 to 2002. In 2003, the White House appointed her as a member of the U.S. delegation to the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations.
Robert P. George
Robert P. George, professor of jurisprudence and politics at Princeton University, is a Roman Catholic who has been called America's "most influential Christian conservative intellectual" by New York Times Magazine. He is director of Princeton's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and was a member of the President's Council on Bioethics. He is also chairman of the board of the National Organization for Marriage, a nonprofit organization that opposes the legalization of same-sex marriages.
Matthew S. Holland
Matthew S. Holland, president of Utah Valley University in Orem since 2009, is a former associate professor of political science at BYU. He earned master's and doctoral degrees from Duke University. He was a fellow in the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University in 2005-06 and the Raoul Wallenberg Scholar at Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1991. He has taught such courses as American Heritage, Modern Political Philosophy and Public Ethics.
Firoz "King" Husein
Firoz "King" Husein is chairman and CEO of Span Construction and Engineering Inc., in Madera, Calif. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Bombay in India and a master's degree in civil engineering from BYU. Span Construction has built large structures from big box stores to automotive and athletic facilities. A convert to the LDS Church, he has served in numerous leadership positions in the Church, including most recently as a bishop.
Jane Clayson Johnson
Jane Clayson Johnson was hired after graduating from BYU as a full-time reporter at KSL-TV, where she won a regional Emmy and the Edward R. Murrow Award. In 1996, she moved to Los Angeles to work for ABC, and she covered Bob Dole's presidential campaign and the O.J. Simpson trial. From 1999 to 2002, she anchored CBS' "The Early Show." She decided to leave her broadcast career to focus on raising her family, which she discussed in her book "I Am a Mother."
Jeffrey Max Jones
Jeffrey Max Jones, a native of Chihuahua, Mexico, is a graduate of BYU and has been the highest-ranking LDS member in the Mexican government. He served in the Chamber of Deputies 1997-2000 and then was elected a national senator to represent Chihuahua from 2000 to 2006. He then was undersecretary of Agribusiness Development until 2009, focusing on prospective planning, domestic and international market development and agricultural finance. He is now pursuing writing and consulting.
Mary McConnell
Mary McConnell, curriculum consultant to Juan Diego Catholic High School in Draper, graduated from Michigan State University in 1977 and attended Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship. She was chief speechwriter for Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger and director of public issues for FMC Corp. in Chicago. While taking time out to spend more time with her children, she became active in the Salt Lake City Christian home schooling organization, then made a career shift into teaching.
Michael W. McConnell
Michael W. McConnell is a professor at Stanford Law School and director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center. Before joining Stanford in 2009, he was a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit. He also was a law professor at the University of Utah and University of Chicago. He has written on many constitutional issues and is known widely for his work on freedom of religion.
Gordon H. Smith
Gordon H. Smith, former Republican senator from Oregon, has been president and CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters since 2009. A graduate of BYU and Southwestern School of Law in Los Angeles, he was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996, serving two terms. Among his committee assignments were chairman of the Special Committee on Aging and ranking member of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on International Trade and Global Competitiveness.
Hannah Clayson Smith
Hannah Clayson Smith is legal counsel for the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, based in Washington, D.C. A graduate of Princeton University and the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU, she has clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. She joined the Becket Fund in 2007 and serves as a member of the J. Reuben Clark Law Society International Board and as reunions chair for her Princeton alumni class.
Catherine M. Stokes
Catherine M. Stokes, who retired in 2006 as a deputy director for the Illinois Department of Health, is a graduate of DePaul University in Chicago. She served as vice chairman on the board of trustees of the Inner City Youth Charitable Foundation in Chicago 1990-2006. Since moving to Utah, she is serving on the board of the Utah AIDS Foundation and is now membership chair of the Utah Chapter of the African-American Genealogy & Historical Society.
Joe Cannon
Joseph A. Cannon is CEO of the Fuel Freedom Foundation and recent editor of the book Why I’m a Mormon. He was the editor of Deseret News for three and a half years from 2006 to 2010. He also served as chairman of the Utah Republican Party from 2001 to 2006. He is a graduate of the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU.
Micheal Flaherty
Micheal Flaherty is the president and co-founder of Walden Media. He is also a member of the Global Advisory Council of Vision 360. Before founding Walden Media, he was an educator specializing in curriculum design. Flaherty graduated from Tufts University. Walden Media’s specializes in media for the whole family. Among others, it has financed and produced “The Chronicles of Narnia” series, "Amazing Grace," "Waiting for Superman," “Charlotte’s Web,” “Bridge to Terabithia” and “Holes.”
Michael Leavitt
Michael O. Leavitt served in the cabinet of President George W. Bush as Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from 2003 to 2005 and Secretary of Health and Human Services from 2005 to 2009. He is a three-time elected governor of Utah (1993 to 2003) and the founder and chairman of Leavitt Partners.
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