Joe Cannon, an attorney, lobbyist and former
chairman of the Utah Republican Party, will become editor of the
Deseret Morning News next month, succeeding John Hughes, who is
returning to a teaching post at Brigham Young University.
Cannon, whose grandfather and great-grandfather were editors of the newspaper, starts Jan.
1, the newspaper said Friday.
Cannon
has been on the newspaper's board since 1996. He resigned as state GOP
leader after the Nov. 7 election and is the brother of U.S. Rep. Chris
Cannon, R-Utah. ...
... Despite
the fact that Cannon's brother is a sitting U.S. congressman and that
Cannon only recently stepped down as the state GOP chairman, Hughes
said he had no qualms about turning over the editor's chair to him. ...
... The question of bias came up during the Deseret Morning News staff meeting announcing Cannon's new newsroom role."He
said, 'If a story comes up related to my brother, or some other
conflict ... I'm going to hand it off to a managing editor or an
assistant managing editor or someone down the line,' " Hughes said. "He
made it very clear."
Scott Libin, ethics faculty member at the
Poynter Institute, a news industry group, said that it will be up to
Cannon to determine whether or not it becomes a conflict of interest.
He said that transitions such as this one have happened, and Cannon
will need to "bend over backward" to demonstrate to readers that he's
serious about journalism and no longer the GOP.
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