Mullen resigns from Trib

Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Dec 21, 2006 by Elaine Jarvik Deseret Morning News

She disagreed. She got mad. And then she quit. That's how columnist Holly Mullen describes her decision to resign from the Salt Lake Tribune. Her farewell column appears today.

Not wanting to scoop herself, Mullen declined to give details to the Deseret Morning News. But, echoing an e-mail she sent to Tribune staff members Tuesday, she said that after 26 years in daily journalism, she's ready for a change.

"I think, on a lot of levels, I'm just tired," she said.

Mullen's decision to resign began with a column she wrote for the Dec. 17 paper about the rescue of a dolphin in China. Although Mullen declined to discuss the column or to reveal its content, she described it as "rather benign, nothing hard-hitting, nothing political." In her e-mail to her colleagues she noted that the column was on a "non-local topic."

"Like everyone else at the Tribune," Mullen wrote in her e-mail, "I've been told to make my work, local, local, local. And more local." Her editor, Terry Orme, pulled the Sunday column.

Orme refused to comment about the matter to the Deseret Morning News. "But I'll tell you that we're going to miss her."

In her e-mail to staff members, Mullen explained the larger context for her resignation. "My decision rests on much bigger stuff than this one event," she said, adding that she has been thinking of moving on for at least six months.

In addition, she said, her "angst" about the newspaper industry also played a part in her decision." I don't feel especially comfortable with reporters blogging. Mostly because their best stuff keeps ending up in the blog and fails to get in the paper. And also because ethics seem more than a bit blurry sometimes."

Mullen, whose column appeared three times a week on the front of the Tribune's Utah section, began her newspaper career in 1981 at the Deseret News as a suburban reporter. Her career has included stints at the Standard-Examiner in Ogden, the Spokesman Review in Spokane, Wash., the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Dallas Observer in Texas. She joined the Salt Lake Tribune in 1997 as a social- services reporter and then deputy editor for sports during the 2002 Olympics.

E-mail: jarvik@desnews.com