Press Release

Salt Lake Tribune Becomes 23rd Partner in NAHJ’s Parity Project

The Salt Lake Tribune, a MediaNews Group newspaper, is pleased to announce that it has joined the National Association of Hispanic Journalists’ (NAHJ) Parity Project. This program seeks to improve the quality of news coverage of the Latino community and to increase the number of Latinos working in the media industry.

The Tribune, which serves a large and growing Latino population in Utah's Salt Lake Valley, is striving to better connect with that community and to improve representation of Latinos in its newsroom.

NAHJ created the Parity Project in 2003. The project works with selected English-language media companies that serve communities with large Latino populations, but do not have a representative percentage of Latino journalists in their newsrooms.

In partnership with The Tribune, NAHJ will co-sponsor a community forum this spring that will bring together the newspaper's management and news staff, and Latino civic and social leaders. The goal of the forum is to develop an on-going relationship with the Latino community in an effort to improve coverage of issues affecting that community.

The organization will also work to develop a long-term partnership with The Tribune to help increase the number of Latino journalists working in the paper’s newsroom.

"We're delighted to participate in this partnership," said Nancy Conway, editor of The Tribune. "This is an excellent opportunity for our newspaper to deepen its service to the greater community."

"NAHJ is thrilled to be partners with The Tribune in this exciting endeavor,” said NAHJ Parity Project Director Kevin Olivas. “Latinos make up a significant and growing segment of the Salt Lake Valley. We are very pleased that The Tribune is interested in reaching out to Latinos and in improving its coverage of this important portion of its audience.”

Since the Parity Project launched two years ago, 22 news organizations have become partners, including 17 newspapers, four television stations and one national radio network.

During the first two years of the Parity Project, the overall number of Latino journalists working at partnering companies increased by 49 percent. The organization also has sponsored town hall meetings attracting more than 1,000 participants and has conducted nearly two dozen cultural awareness sessions with more than 1,000 newsroom professionals.

Founded in 1871, The Salt Lake Tribune has long served as Utah's independent watchdog. It is the dominant news organization in the state.

The Tribune is part of the MediaNews Group, which owns more than 40 daily newspapers in nine states, with combined daily and Sunday circulation of 1.7 million and 2.3 million, respectively.