The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board

The Salt Lake Tribune editorial board offers opinions and analyses of the everyday challenges impacting Utahns.

The editorial board — which operates independently of the newsroom — includes members of the newspaper’s professional staff, members from The Tribune’s Board of Directors and community members. One board of directors member and the community members rotate annually.

The Tribune is a nonprofit, and as such the editorial board no longer makes candidate endorsements. Nonprofits cannot do so under federal law.

The current members of the editorial board include the following:

Tom Love

Tom Love is a Salt Lake City advertising executive and fundraiser with deep Utah roots. He became chair of The Tribune’s board of directors in February 2024.

Love joined the editorial board in 2023 and retired in January 2023 from Love Communications, the influential ad firm he co-founded 25 years ago after a 12-year stint as a sales executive for ABC4 Utah. Love has been an adjunct professor at the University of Utah and served on the nonprofit boards of United Way and Utah Symphony | Utah Opera for over a decade each, including in leadership roles.

“I’m absolutely in love with The Salt Lake Tribune,” Love says. “I’ve been a reader and a supporter and a subscriber my entire life. I feel an intense obligation to do whatever I can to help The Tribune thrive, keep The Tribune voice alive, and continue to grow, and be Utah’s watchdog.”

Lauren Gustus

Lauren Gustus returned to The Tribune as executive editor in the fall of 2020 and was named CEO in June 2024. She previously served as executive editor of The Sacramento Bee and West Region editor for McClatchy. She joined the editorial board in 2020.

Marjorie Cortez

Marjorie Cortez is a retired journalist who worked more than three decades as a reporter and opinion writer for daily newspapers in Utah and Colorado. She retired from the Deseret News in 2024. She enjoys exploring the West, spoiling her toddler granddaughter, rooting for the Utah Mammoth and devouring news websites over a cup of strong, black coffee.

Beth Noymer Levine

Beth Noymer Levine has been an avid reader of the Salt Lake Tribune for the 28 years she has resided in Utah. She established and ran SmartMouth Communications in Salt Lake City for 20 years, where she coached and trained corporate and non-profit executives, professional and world-class athletes, elected officials and many others to communicate more effectively. Beth has served on the boards of, and volunteered for, many local organizations, most recently Jewish Family Service. She currently resides in Park City and sits on the boards of First Community Bank and its parent company, Glacier Bancorp.

Gretchen Zaitzeff

With 18 years in public education, Gretchen Zaitzeff is the District Library Media Specialist for Canyons School District. Prior to her work in library services, Gretchen had the privilege of being a full-time mother after a short career in television and video production. She is currently the co-lead for the Utah Information, News, and Media Literacy Collaborative, a group of administrators, educators and other stakeholders dedicated to improving and expanding K-12 news and media literacy instruction. She is the past president of the Utah School Library Association.

George Pyle

George has been an editorial writer, columnist and blogger for The Tribune’s opinion space since 2002 — with a four-year diversion to do the same things for The Buffalo News in Buffalo, N.Y. He joined the editorial board in October 2002.

Jay Shelledy

James E. (Jay) Shelledy, a founding member of The Salt Lake Tribune Board of Directors, former university professor and, for 12 years, editor of The Tribune, joined the nonprofit publication’s editorial board in August 2023.

Now retired, Shelledy was most recently at Louisiana State University where, for a time, he directed student media, and directed LSU’s Cold Case Civil Rights-era Murders Project and Wrongful Conviction project.

Pat Bagley

Editorial cartoonist Pat Bagley has been taking the temperature of the state of Utah with his pen since 1979. He has won several prestigious cartooning awards, including the Herblock Prize in 2009, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2014. He joined the editorial board in 2024.

The editorial board welcomes community members and leaders to speak about local and timely issues, as well as potential solutions to shared community challenges. If you’re interested in speaking with the editorial board, please email Voices editor Sara Weber at sweber@sltrib.com.

Please understand that the editorial board might not always be able to accommodate a meeting request, and that Utahns are invited to submit an op-ed or a letter to the editor for consideration.