Deseret News announces new media leadership team

SALT LAKE CITY — The Deseret News is adding three members with broad and deep online experience to its leadership team — Christopher M. Lee, Matthew R. Sanders and Dave Bascom.

Thursday's announcement represents part of a plan to accelerate the digital growth of the Deseret News and deseretnews.com.

Each of the three brings noteworthy experience with online products and work and will utilize that leadership in developing a new media content model of the future to expand the reach of the Deseret News brand, according to a company news release.

The Deseret News will have access to the trio through its sister company, Deseret Digital Media, the leading digital media company in the Mountain West.

Lee joins the Deseret News from his position as the CEO of Heritage Makers, a privately held seller of Web-to-print products. He has held key leadership roles in several new media companies, including serving as director of business development at Ancestry.com and director of product management for MyFamily.com, a first-of-its-kind social network for families. He began his career with Monitor Group, a global innovation and strategy firm.

Lee said deseretnews.com will build on its heritage of local coverage of news and sports while using the power of the Web to engage an increasingly broad audience.

One small example is a new feature that allows sports fans to compete with experts to pick the outcomes of high school, college and pro football games. The feature will allow deseretnews.com users to compare their picks and get reaction in real time.

"The goals are to bring added perspective and engagement to the news," Lee said.

Lee holds a bachelor's degree from BYU and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

"The creativity and inventive thinking that has propelled Chris in other new media ventures will serve the Deseret News well as we lead deseretnews.com to further growth on the Web," said Clark Gilbert, president and CEO of the Deseret News and Deseret Digital Media, in the news release.

Sanders will lead a new organization called Deseret Connect, which will cultivate a network of local and national contributors to create relevant, insightful and engaging stories for the Deseret News. The writers will add to the overall content of the daily newspaper, which will maintain a staff of writers with a strong focus on compelling in-house content.