This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2006, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
This is my final column for The Tribune.
Every action in life has a trigger. Last weekend, a good friend and editor pulled my Sunday column. I got mad. We had a serious discussion. The column did not run.
I fear he blames himself for my decision to quit. But it goes beyond one dispute. In context, this event served me well. I needed a jolt. I need to reboot. I'm leaving the best job and newspaper in Utah.
The decision to push onward took serious meditation. I pulled out the tools I always use in making Big Life Changes: took countless deep breaths; ran a blur of miles on a freezing dark morning, my mind racing with options. I consulted with my best friends - husband, Ted, and mother, Jean - until (bless 'em) their eyes glazed over.
I don't have another job, and my belly has a knot the size of a basketball. I've done only newspaper journalism for 26 years. But Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. keeps cheering Utah's robust job market and booming economy. Supposedly, we've reached the Emerald City of prosperity, folks. You can practically smell the money.
I'm about to test the guv's hypothesis.
You have loaned me your attention, and even better, your trust for the past five years. I want to explain my reasons for quitting. It's simple and enormously complex all at once. The newspaper industry - and by extension, The Trib - is transitioning more extremely than I can accept. I had definitely signed on to many of the changes: very local news coverage and columns, quicker turnaround time on our Web site. The drive throughout the news biz is to entice online readers.
Editor Nancy Conway has described the key to our workplace not as "working harder" but as "working differently." Believe me, everyone here is trying to do so.
I'm just not equipped to go all the way.
I love short, snappy stories. I also love meaty, analytical, thoughtful stories. We still publish both, but fewer of the latter.
Tribune managers tell us readership surveys show that people demand local, local and more local stories. I accept that, and I've worked to deliver. But I also rely on my own instincts. They tell me readers appreciate column topics - occasionally - reaching as far as France, China and Pennsylvania's Pocono Mountains. I've written about them all, because they felt human. They were in my heart.
Thank you for reading my work. Thank you for all of your e-mails - even from people too chicken to sign them. Here's a hint: Start signing them. Putting your name to your beliefs builds courage.
For the next few weeks, I'm going to hang with my two teenagers, read books with my step-grandkids, ski, cook real family dinners, ski, maybe start a blog. Oh, and ski.
And please don't give up on newspapers. They are not giving up on you.