Salt Lake City's El Observador is rebranding itself as OKEspañol and changing its delivery schedule. The 11,000-circulation, twice-weekly paper will still be printed and distributed only in Utah, and editor Patricia Quijano-Dark says "We're not heading for national yet." Note that last word.

In a press release announcing the shift, OKEspañol's publisher, Greg Peterson, said "El Observador de Utah connected us to a Utah audience, OKEspañol includes Utah but it transcends geography and culture with a universal appeal that extends from the United States throughout Latin America and beyond.” He also says the company will "look at expansion.”

In a phone interview, Quijano-Dark taps the brakes slightly on that ambition, saying the paper, which is owned by Deseret Media Companies, is going to going to double down on issues important to Latinos, no matter where they live: Families, health, education, values, communities. "Family is a big focus" for Latino families, she says. OKEspañol will cover "information on how to find scholarships, on how to get kids into college, how the tax system works." (more...)

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The show "promotes a brand that we just cannot support," says Mark Willes, chief executive officer of Deseret Media Companies, the parent company of both KSL and the Deseret News. "We would be helping to build a brand that stands for pornography. For us, that's just untenable. We would never accept an ad from The Playboy Club, just as we don't accept ads for alcohol or gambling." (KSL also refuses to air "Saturday Night Live." ) Salt Lake Tribune TV critic Scott D. Pierce calls the rival media outlet's move predictable and hypocritical.

I have actually seen "The Playboy Club" pilot. It's not lascivious or lewd. Essentially, it's a crime drama set in the early 1960s. The characters either work at or belong to the Playboy Club in Chicago.

There's no nudity. The bunny costumes are of the period - meaning they're considerably more conservative than a lot of the dresses that a lot of actresses wear in a lot of other NBC shows.

"The Playboy Club" is clearly not for kids. But KSL airs plenty of shows that aren't for kids.

I can say without hesitation that every episode of "Law & Order: SVU" is more "adult" than the pilot of "The Playboy Club." And KSL has aired almost 300 episodes of that show.

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West Valley City Mayor Mike Winder says writing for the paper "will be an opportunity to share more information about West Valley City or other topics I care passionately about with a large audience." (The mayor and his colleagues recognized L. Ron Hubbard Day earlier this year.) One reader questions the paper's decision to give space to the mayor:

The Deseret News may be on a slippery slope with this initiative.

Where does public information end and propaganda or political campaigning begin?

What about citizens who disagree with what their elected officials are doing? Will the Deseret News give them equal space in order to present their arguments?

Deseret News CEO Clark Gilbert's memo is after the jump.

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