By David Noyce (Guest Contributor)–
(Editor’s note: The Salt Lake Tribune recently honored David Noyce for 40 years of service to the newspaper, where he now edits the Tribune’s religion coverage. This is his thank you speech after receiving the award.)
Let me start by simply saying thanks for this honor. It’s always nice to get another reminder of how old I am getting.
Thanks also to [Executive Editor] Lauren [Gustus]. You should know that she is a driven, visionary journalist who is committed to The Tribune’s expansive mission. We have total confidence in her as our leader — even though we sometimes tire of answering her inevitable question: “Who is the audience for that story?”
One of the happiest days in my Tribune career was when she arrived and relieved me of my temporary role as interim editor, one I was dragged into filling (thanks a lot, Paul [Huntsman] and Jay [Shelledy]). Suffice it to say that those four months were no Camelot, at least for me. They were “brief,” yes, but less than “shining.”
Thanks to [religion writer] Peggy [Fletcher Stack], as well, for that kind introduction (which, by the way, was NOT filled with errors). When I became her direct editor, it reinvigorated my career.
I am not sure Utahns and our readers farther afield fully appreciate what a jewel we have in Peggy. She is an internationally recognized religion reporter who actually co-founded a global group of faith journalists. It is hard to find a serious book on Mormonism that does not have her work quoted in the footnotes. I tell Peggy that when I edit her stories, it’s like my “dessert.” I love to work with all of my colleagues. We all need main courses, but who doesn’t like frozen yogurt with rainbow sprinkles after a hardy meal (even though Peggy’s articles are plenty meaty)? Sorry for that gastronomical mixed metaphor.
Now, if you’ll pardon me, I’m going to sound like an old guy in my remarks. But, hey, journalism is the pursuit of truth, and, the truth is, I am an old guy.
Even so, I still remember my first day as a newspaper reporter and editor.
I was 10.
Yes, I was a sports-loving, bespectacled prepubescent, with blond bangs and a squeaky voice (picture a miniature John Denver), growing up in Glendale on the west side of Salt Lake City, when I started a neighborhood newspaper, The Montgomery Street Times, or whatever I titled it.
My friends and I would gather news items, including standings from our Strat-O-Matic baseball games, and toss in a reader poll. Even then, I was aware of how to capture audience interest: I made sure we quoted McRay Epling, my best friend’s older brother and the coolest kid on the block. His name would certainly sell.
I then would slide sheets of white paper, separated by carbon paper, into a Royal portable typewriter, and pound out our one-page newspaper. That was our “printing press.” We then took the typewritten and carbon-copied sheets and peddled them for pennies (mostly to parents).
If memory serves, our paper lasted two or three editions. The reason: I wanted to take some of our “revenue” and buy more carbon paper. You know, invest in our product. As a kid, I already had a nonprofit vision.
My friends, however, didn’t. They wanted to blow it all on Twizzlers, Kits, Bazooka bubble gum and other penny candies (they indeed went for 1 cent apiece back then) at our neighborhood’s Rexall drugstore.
The sweets won. The paper lost.
The point is: Newspapers — and in this digital age I still don’t shy away from calling them that — are in my blood and have been since I was a grade schooler.
My late father worked for more than 30 years as an artist (he had real talent) at the Deseret News (boo, right?). My uncle covered education for the DNews. And a cousin eventually worked with my dad as an artist at the opposition paper, too.
I visited that newsroom often as a kid, soaking it all in and looking forward to my dad buying me a hot dog and chocolate milk at the Grabeteria, which, as luck, or fate, would have it, had newspapers tacked to the walls.
So how did I end up at The Salt Lake Tribune? The answer is easy, really. The DNews didn’t hire me, but Trib Editor Will Fehr did — over the phone, mind you. I thought he was calling to interview me or at least to set up an interview. Instead he simply asked, in his gravelly voice, “When can you start?”
During my first years at The Tribune, when our journalistic careers overlapped, my father and I met in the lunchroom the two papers used to share above the joint printing presses. We talked about family. We talked about religion. We talked about sports. But mostly we talked about our newspapers. He cheered the DNews and jeered the Trib. I trashed the DNews and trumpeted The Trib.
I closed virtually every debate with a simple declaration. “Sorry, Dad, but The Trib is better.”
For the past 40 years — amid all the bylines, deadlines, headlines and headaches — I have worked shoulder to shoulder with some of the best in the business, including my current colleagues.
I remember 1985, when, late on election night, as Palmer DePaulis was winning a term as Salt Lake City’s first Catholic mayor, we quickly reshaped the front page after learning of the death of Spencer W. Kimball, president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So we had an interfaith front page the next day. I remember actually getting to utter the words “stop the presses” in the early morning hours so we could update the lead story with news about the end of a federal government shutdown. I remember writing a front-page story rounding up Bill Clinton’s 1996 reelection. I remember tearing myself away from the television vigil most Americans were holding on 9/11 to pursue local reactions to the terror attacks (and then writing a front-page essay about that tragic day a decade later). I remember working as hockey editor during the 2002 Winter Olympics — still the funnest if most exhausting two weeks I ever spent in journalism. (Peggy and I only half-jokingly talk about sticking around for encores in 2034.) I remember working on the historic front page when Barack Obama was elected president. We had a similarly landmark Page 1 prepared for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Alas, we never got the chance to print it — oh, it was a beauty — and instead had to concoct, on the fly, in the early morning hours, a headline telling a much different story. I remember April 10, 2017, while my colleagues were cheering, weeping, hugging, high-fiving and toasting to celebrate the announcement of our second Pulitzer Prize, I was tethered to my keyboard writing and posting the story of the staff’s triumph. I couldn’t wait to finish and join the party, but the news had to get out first.
Even more dear to my heart are my interviews with ordinary Utahns who do extraordinary things. There were the five brothers who served in World War II, including the eldest, whose military stint was up and was actually exiting the base when MPs ordered him to turn around and report back to his unit. The date was Dec. 7, 1941. Pearl Harbor. He wound up serving another 4½ years in uniform. There were the four women — mothers and grandmothers — who formed the bulwark of Myton’s volunteer fire department. There was the overachieving Altamont teen who earned all 123 Boy Scout merit badges. And there are all the sources who bravely opened up and shared their feelings about the most polarizing issue in the state — the one that exists between Latter-day Saints and their fellow Utahns. It’s an “Unspoken Divide” we wrote about in 2001 and are revisiting this year and next. (Here’s a tease: Our next installment is due out soon on how this divide affects dating in Utah.)
You see, I never really got over the thrill that comes from being the first one in the world, the nation, the state, the city, or even the block to tell people that something has happened. We used to celebrate beating the competition by a day; now we celebrate beating the competition by seconds.
To this day, I still get juiced by journalism — to, in the words of a former deputy editor, “tell stories and raise hell.”
So thanks to The Tribune for these moments, these memories. And thanks to my children, grandchildren and my wife, Beth, the love of my life and still the prettiest girl I know, who has put up with my long, often inconvenient hours — stepping away from a family dinner to field a phone call from a jittery source; leaving a movie to help a reporter with a lead; skipping out on holiday happenings to edit a breaking story; missing a child’s Little League game, play or concert to cover a City Council meeting; and working through the night on an enterprise piece that simply had to get online that morning.
That’s the passion, precision and, we hope, professionalism, we, at The Tribune, bring to our jobs. We appreciate your support so much.
So, in closing, I say to my father: “Dad, thanks. I love you. I miss you. Say hi to Mom. And, remember, ‘The Trib is still better.’”
David Noyce is a managing editor at The Salt Lake Tribune, where he has worked since 1984. He oversees coverage ranging from local government and west-side issues to growth, development and housing. In addition, he directs religion reporting, co-hosts the award-winning “Mormon Land” podcast and writes the Mormon Land newsletter.
