The Media Scrum
Mark Saal and Don Porter, co-hosts of The Media Scrum, have a combined 59 years worth of experience in Utah newspaper (and broadcast) journalism. Even though both have moved on to other lines of work — Don is a retired public relations manager and Mark as a high school English teacher — they remain intensely interested in the condition of journalism in the Beehive State and elsewhere. This biweekly podcast features interviews with people who also share an interest in, and have experience with, Utah news media and beyond. Send your comments and suggested guests and topics to themediascrum@hotmail.com.
Episodes
75 episodes
Season 2 & 3 Update
We haven't published an episode since April. Here's why, and the plans for Season 3.
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Season 2
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Episode 23
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2:40
Rep. Steve Handy
This time on The Media Scrum we speak with Rep. Steve Handy, who represents House District 16 in the Utah Legislature. Steve’s a six-term incumbent who just got tossed by delegates to the GOP Davis County Convention. He talks about that, and ot...
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Season 2
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Episode 22
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59:33
Amy Joi O'Donoghue
This time on The Media Scrum we speak with Amy Joi O’Donoghue, a reporter for the Deseret News’ Utah In-Depth team with decades of expertise and award-winning writing in police, government, land and environmental issues. Mark and I ...
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Season 2
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Episode 21
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51:51
Jim Burton
This time on The Media Scrum we speak with Jim Burton, longtime sports writer and columnist for the Standard-Examiner. Since leaving the Standard, Jim has dabbled in PR and marketing, and even did some editing at the Deseret News. But no...
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Season 2
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Episode 20
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1:21:17
Chris Carlson -- "9/11 with POTUS"
This time on The Media Scrum we venture outside the Utah media bubble and speak with Chris Carlson, who worked in network-TV news for 42 years. As an ABC News cameraman in Washington, D.C., Carlson had a front-row seat to history. In cov...
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Season 2
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Episode 19
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1:07:22
Lori Buttars
This time on The Media Scrum we speak with Lori Buttars, longtime reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune. Lori covered the Olympics, arts and music, and all sorts of beats at the Trib. She’s also been a “visiting professional” at Utah State ...
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Season 2
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Episode 18
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1:12:52
Jay Evensen
This time out things are a little different, since Mark had a conflict the evening of the interview, and I ended up speaking with our guest, the Deseret News’s Jay Evensen, one-on-one. Jay is the DNews’s editorial columnist and an editorial wri...
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Season 2
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Episode 17
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1:00:50
Mary Nickles
This time out we’re revisiting a conversation we had last summer with Mary Nickles, whose career at KUTV in Salt Lake City just passed the 30-year mark – and 30 years is forever in TV news. Mary has been the morning, noon and/or evening ...
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Season 2
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Episode 16
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1:10:23
Cathy Free
This time we’re repeating an episode from March 2021 which has us talking to Cathy Free, who’s been a journalist for 40-plus years for the Salt Lake Tribune, Deseret News, Spokane Spokesman-Review, People magazine, Reader’s Digest and, currentl...
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Season 2
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Episode 15
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1:15:14
Holly Mullen
We sincerely hope you’ve been having a terrific holiday season. We have, and that’s the reason we’re revisiting one of the earliest episodes of the podcast, from August 2020, with our friend Holly Mullen, because all the holiday stuff has taken...
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Season 2
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Episode 14
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1:00:05
Maria Shilaos
This time on The Media Scrum we speak with Maria Shilaos, host of Utah’s noon news and the national desk anchor at KSL Newsradio, where she’s worked since 1991. Maria was born and raised in Utah, graduating Olympus High School, and she e...
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Season 2
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Episode 13
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1:00:44
Dave Greiling
This episode we speak with Dave Greiling, who was the Standard-Examiner’s managing editor for a decade from 2003-2013. Dave grew up in Green Bay, Wisconsin, and worked for newspapers in Rickford, Ill., Lansing, Mich., and Ft. Collins, Co...
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Season 2
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Episode 12
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1:03:57
Bob Evans
This week we speak with Bob Evans, who co-anchors the evening news at Fox 13. Bob’s won numerous awards over the years for his work, and is one of those TV anchors who still reports his own stories. Bob grew up in Tacoma, Washington, and...
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Season 2
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Episode 11
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1:16:54
Lois Collins -- REPEAT
This week we’re repeating our conversation with Lois Collins, a longtime reporter for the Deseret News. Neither Mark nor I had ever met Lois, but we’ve seen her byline often over the decades and know our friends at the DNews hold her in high re...
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Season 2
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Episode 10
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1:01:24
Dr. Sheree Josephson
This week we speak with Sheree Josephson, former chair of the Department of Communication at Weber State University who has taught journalism and other communication classes at WSU for more than 28 years. She was recently honored with th...
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Season 2
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Episode 9
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1:04:29
Lisa Roskelley -- REPEAT
This week we turn the clock back to December 2020 and our guest Lisa Roskelley. Lisa’s post-college years, as you’ll hear, included a sales job in California before starting as a reporter at the Standard-Examiner and then transitioning into a p...
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Season 2
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Episode 8
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1:17:09
Morgan Saxton -- REPEAT
This week we're repeating our September 2020 conversation with KUTV reporter Morgan Saxton, who near the start of her career worked with Mark at the Standard-Examiner. In retrospect, it’s been quite a year for Morgan, who not long after this in...
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Season 2
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Episode 7
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59:36
Cal Grondahl -- REPEAT
This week we thought it would be fun to repeat an episode from December 2020 with Calvin Grondahl, without a doubt the king of Utah editorial cartoonists. Cal began his career at BYU, was hired by the Deseret News and later fled to the Standard...
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Season 2
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Episode 6
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1:10:34
Stacey & Greg Kratz -- REPEAT
This week we’re repeating a fun and interesting conversation from February that we had with Stacey and Greg Kratz – who’ve had decades-long careers in Utah journalism, most significantly at the Standard-Examiner and Deseret News, but lots of ot...
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Season 2
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Episode 5
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1:25:45
Allison Barlow Hess
This week we speak with Allison Barlow Hess, a BYU grad who reported at KSL for a dozen years, then spent another decade teaching budding journalists at Weber State University and, finally, since 2010 has been the school’s director of pu...
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Season 2
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Episode 4
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55:42
Lynn Arave
This week we speak with Lynn Arave, who wrote for the Deseret News from 1979 to 2011, followed by stints as a freelance columnist at both the DNews and Standard-Examiner. Lynn’s also authored and co-authored a number of books about vario...
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Season 2
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Episode 3
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51:22
Randall Carlisle
This week we speak with Randall Carlisle, who, before he retired a few years back, had been a TV news anchor in the Utah market on and off since 1980 – that’s four decades, people. Randall started at KUTV, but spent the most time – two d...
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Season 2
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Episode 2
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1:15:24
Amy Donaldson -- REPEAT
We’ve been running some repeats this summer because we are human beings who take vacations and have other things happening in our lives. Plus, this gives us a chance to reintroduce some of our favorite episodes in case you haven’t yet heard the...
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Season 2
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Episode 1
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58:42
Wendy Ogata -- REWIND
This week at The Media Scrum we mark our one-year anniversary. It’s amazing, but we’ve been doing this for 52 weeks. Now, that said, we’ve repeated a few episodes this summer because we’ve been vacationing and had other events in our lives pop ...
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Season 1
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Episode 52
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54:36