Salt Lake City paid paper plans free daily

The Salt Lake Tribune plans to launch a free daily called Flash, according to an ad the paper has posted at JournalismJobs.com for an editor who will head a four-person news staff.

MediaNews Group, the owner of the Tribune, was intending to use the name Flash for a free daily it was planning in 2005 in Berkeley, California. San Francisco Bay Area editor David Burgin had been planning to launch the Flash for a year and a half when, unexpectedly, a rival free daily started, the Berkeley Daily News. MediaNews shelved its plans for Flash, but apparently has now resurrected the name for use in Salt Lake City.

"The new tabloid will target Salt Lake City residents as they commute home from work and will be handed out on the street and be in prominently placed boxes Monday through Friday," the ad says.

The Tribune is owned by MediaNews Group, a privately held chain of 57 papers in 12 states headed by Dean Singleton. Ironically, while MediaNews was beaten to market in Berkeley, it ended up acquiring the Berkeley Daily Planet a year later as part of its acquisition of papers previously owned by Knight Ridder in the Bay Area.