Newsroom will miss its 'Chief'

But no one could point to a single instance in the regular news pages of the Deseret Morning News of bias or catering to special interests.

I found it ironic that Mr. Hughes' biggest critic was the liberal Salt Lake mayor, Rocky Anderson, who in a snit stopped talking to the newspaper because of a perception of bias, when of all the editors in the Deseret News' 156-year history, I think it's safe to say none of them bent over farther to be evenhanded.

Under different circumstances, I'm convinced Rocky and Hughes would have been enjoying drinks together in some correspondents' bar in Jakarta.

In a way it was kind of the ultimate compliment — the non-LDS editor of the LDS-owned newspaper reviled by the non-practicing LDS mayor.

Not that Hughes ever talked about things in those terms. He talked about religion as much as he talked about winning his Pulitzer, which in both cases was never.

Although he wasn't above joking about his non-LDS status being an advantage because, "if they don't like me, they can't send me on a mission to Boogabooga."

In short, he is the most complete and fair newspaper man I have ever known — and I don't say that about just anybody.

The students he's going to teach as he returns to his cush life as a journalism professor — his last day as editor of the Morning News is today — should listen to what he has to say. Talk about bringing the world of journalism into a classroom. And ideally, they ought to call him "Chief."

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Lee Benson's column runs Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Please send e-mail to benson@desnews.com and faxes to 801-237-2527.