On October 9, a Thursday, The Southern Utah Tribune published its first issue. The monthly, free print newspaper, identified as a “product of the Salt Lake Tribune,” was mailed to 40,000 homes and businesses across Washington County (population just over 200,000), the fast-growing southwest corner of the state in what’s known as red rock country. Beyond an array of news stories, its index points readers to a calendar, obituaries, puzzles, sports, and a “voices” opinion section.
Washington County is a four-and-a-half hour drive from Salt Lake City, where The Salt Lake Tribune — an old newspaper turned young nonprofit — is headquartered. But The Southern Utah Tribune is not intended to be a satellite or bureau offshoot of Salt Lake City’s newsroom, CEO and executive editor Lauren Gustus told me. Rather, this is a local news product for Washington County; its form and content are rooted in what county residents told the Tribune they wanted, and it has two full-time reporters living in Washington County. (One, Brooke Larsen, is a new hire, while Mark Eddington has spent much of his career at The Salt Lake Tribune.)
“When I saw the Tribune was hiring a reporter to write about an undercovered and rapidly growing part of my home state, I jumped on the opportunity,” Larsen writes in her introductory column. Eddington notes he left the Tribune for more than a decade to work as a press secretary and speechwriter (for Senator Orinn Hatch and Governor Gary Herbert, both Republicans), where he says he “learned that spin is best left to washing machines” before returning to the Tribune. A local volunteer advisory committee, whose members appear on The Southern Utah Tribune’s masthead, will provide input on stories of local importance and play a role in connecting the publication with “potential supporters.”…