"You only have to look at the fate of afternoon papers around the country to see that the Deseret News must go morning if it is to survive and flourish," said John Hughes, Deseret News editor and chief operating officer. "To remain in the afternoon field means the ultimate demise of the Deseret News, and the Tribune management company seems to relish that prospect."

The Deseret News is legally entitled to go morning under a Joint Operating Agreement or JOA, which governs the NAC. But in a February 1997 letter to L. Glen Snarr, chairman of the Deseret News Board of Directors, Tribune Publisher Dominic A. Welch dismissed the News plan to go morning as "economic folly."

Welch is president of the NAC as well, which the Deseret News sees as a conflict of loyalties that adversely affects the News.

Welch, who was unavailable for comment Saturday, warned that the Deseret News' change to morning could "trigger the optional termination of our JOA." He refused to share a carrier or distribution force and threatened to penalize the News by fining it or delivering the Tribune to Deseret News racks and subscribers if the Deseret News missed deadlines.

"The Tribune and Agency (NAC) will continue to view the morning field as primarily the Tribune's under the JOA. In the event only one paper can go out — it will be the Tribune," he wrote.

Snarr says, "We have the right to choose a partner who will support and ensure our survival. We have gone to great lengths to work with the Tribune management company. But they have given us unfair treatment and obstructed our right to go morning. MediaNews is willing to work with us, hence our business decision to go with MediaNews."

Deseret News Publisher Jim Wall said relations with the NAC deteriorated when the issues between the two became ripe, dismissing recent Tribune reports that the feud has been fueled by changes in management at the Deseret News. "It's not a difference in personalities but a change in business interests and a changing business environment."

According to court documents, the Deseret News complained of:

• Insistence by NAC that additional press capacity was necessary for the Deseret News to switch to morning circulation, although independent consultants found otherwise.

• Circulation for both newspapers was below industry averages, and advertising revenues were "trending downward" with no plan to fix the problems at a time when "significant growth was in full bloom locally and such growth was being experienced in other comparable markets."

• Costs are divided equally between the two newspapers despite the Tribune having roughly twice the circulation of the Deseret News.

• NAC refuses to provide information detailing the rationale for some capital expenditures and other costs. Of particular concern is the price the NAC pays for newsprint from a paper mill partially owned by the Tribune.
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