Publishing partnerships produce some strange bedfellows, but it's not every day that one party is tempted to hide the publication under the mattress.

Such is the case in Salt Lake City, however, where a marriage was consummated in 1952 -- for better or worse -- between rival newspapers, The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret Morning News.

The union's latest offspring is a free tabloid magazine laced with R-rated (some would say pornographic) profanity, including unabashed use of the f-word. The publication returns profits to the Deseret Morning News, and to the LDS Church, which owns the newspaper.

The news magazine is called In Utah This Week, and it is distributed free across the Wasatch Front in plastic news racks, including many in Utah Valley. While In Utah This Week carries a Tribune logo, much of the advertising revenue is divided with the News through the partnership.

The magazine's content would make some sailors blush -- and that's before you arrive at the adult-oriented advertising. Now hiring: Utah's busiest -- and classiest -- escort service, where applicants can make $5,000 per week.

In partnerships like this one, especially when one partner is associated with a church, the devil is in the details.

One need not be a detective to recognize that fundamental differences exist between the two competing dailies. The Deseret Morning News, after all, is ultimately owned by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; the Tribune was originally founded as a counter voice to the state's dominant religion.

When the rivals first agreed to enter into a joint operating agreement in 1952, a third company, the Newspaper Agency Corporation, was formed to manage all of the advertising, circulation, printing and business functions of the two publications. Only the editorial voices remained independent. The two newspaper companies share revenue and expenses through NAC at a pre-determined fixed percentage.

According to Jim Wall, president and publisher of the News, the split is 58-42, with the Tribune getting the most. This split applies to any publication printed by the NAC that contains advertising, regardless which newspaper's staff produces it.

"We have a fairly diverse number of print publications," Wall said of the NAC. "It doesn't matter who publishes them. So, if the Tribune's name happens to be the one that works on one publication and we work on another, it's very transparent."

Revenue refused

An additional consideration is that there are specific types of advertisements the Deseret Morning News refuses to publish that appear in the Salt Lake Tribune -- like escort services and massage parlors. Those accounts, said Wall, are considered "one-sided revenue" and profits go entirely to the Tribune.

"There are kinds of advertising that we do not want and will not accept revenue for," Wall said.

But the Deseret Morning News still takes its 42-percent cut from otherwise acceptable advertising contained in products like In Utah This Week that it would clearly not touch with a 10-foot Angel Moroni trumpet.

"I think if you have a business, you have to make decisions, and there's not all clearly black-and-white decisions," Wall said. "We run in our paper R-rated movies. Well, I don't go to R-rated movies, but we run them in the paper. We run stories about things that are not necessarily savory, but they're important news stories. As we enter in a relationship with the NAC and they have a publication that is competitive in the marketplace and the Tribune feels like it's something that they feel a need to do, we're going to say, 'Yeah, that one's yours. We're not interested in publishing that. It won't run in our paper. Our readers won't see it, and that's fine.' "

The gray area is probably best understood by visiting any one of nearly two dozen distribution stands in various Utah County locations. Those bright red plastic stands, easily identifiable by the word "gratis" (Spanish for "free") printed prominently at the top, offer copies of two vastly different weekly entertainment guides. The top half contains Utah Valley Life, produced by the Deseret Morning News, while the bottom delivers In Utah This Week, the 4-month-old product of the Salt Lake Tribune.

The two tabloids, both of which deliver profits to the NAC partners, may rest mere inches away from each other in distribution, but they are miles apart in editorial content.

Take recent cover stories:

Utah Valley Life featured a photo of dolls relaxing in play homes that could have been designed by Martha Stewart, with an accompanying story on the annual Utah Valley Doll House Festival, which raises money for the Children's Justice Center in Provo.

In Utah This Week had the face of Ted Bundy staring out from the cover, along with references to serial killers, aliens, psychics and graves in a story titled "October Oddities."

Big differences

The differences don't end there.

Clean-cut Utah Valley Life has absolutely no profanity. In Utah This Week has plenty, including the queen mother of all swear words.

Yes, that one.

"Yes, we do at times use language that some may deem questionable," said Michael Yount, editor for In Utah This Week. "We try not to throw it around as if to say, 'Hey, look at us, we can use the f-word,' but in the right context -- or when quoting someone -- we will print it."

The blinders also freely come off when it comes to some of the publication's feature content, which, erring on the side of caution, may best be described as irreverent or racy.

One early cover story dished on "Sexy Summer Reading" opportunities, with a series of steamy reviews on books described as most likely to be found under your bed or buried in your underwear drawer. Some of the books reviewed were "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star," "Intercourses: An Aphrodisiac Cookbook," "Position of the Day Playbook" and one aimed at LDS audiences, "Between Husband and Wife."

Other stories have highlighted a pornographic comic book that reinvents the adventures of Alice in Wonderland, Dorothy and Peter Pan's Wendy; e-Bay searches for "Mormon underpants"; and a downtown lounge described as being a place where "gay and straight couples danced, drank and flirted with a hedonistic abandon that would make the 'Sex and the City' girls proud."

"Our stories have different style -- in terms of the writing, the story and the design -- than most newspapers and tabloids," Yount said. "It's a bit more whimsical and not as tied to old-school newspaper constraints. That's not to say we're not professional or serious, but we have more freedom to try new and unconventional approaches."

Which also is not to say that In Utah This Week doesn't have plenty of regular feature content -- it does. But it is allowed to push the envelope much further than its parent publication in terms of profanity and adult-oriented content.

"The idea is that we're not going to shy away from that kind of thing," said Yount, drawing an analogy to television. "The main product [the Tribune] is more like regular cable television and we may be a little bit more like HBO. We can push it a little bit further."

The one difference with that analogy, some might argue, is that one pays to subscribe to HBO, and the programs come with rating guidelines. In Utah This Week is available for free to whoever picks one up, regardless of age.

In Utah This Week is not distributed inside the Salt Lake Tribune, which created some initial confusion over just who was producing it -- the NAC or the Tribune.

"It is a little bit nebulous in a way," Yount said, pointing out that he and his staff do technically work for and receive support from the Tribune. "We do get a little bit of staff support from the Salt Lake Tribune, but we are kind of a separate staff and we run ourselves independently from the main product of the Tribune."

Brent Low, the NAC's president and CEO, was more succinct.

"It's the Tribune's product," Low said. "We print it. We distribute it. We print the Tribune and distribute it, and we print the Deseret News and distribute it. Pretty simple."

Not quite so simple as that, it turns out, when you consider the approval process to which any new NAC product must adhere. According to Wall, any new product by either paper that contains advertising must first be approved by the NAC board. There are four members on the board, two representing each side's interests.

Approval process

Wall, who is a member of the NAC board, said each proposed product must be presented, and a simple majority determines the outcome.

In the case of In Utah This Week, Wall said he and Ellis Ivory, chairman of the board at the Deseret Morning News, both approved the project. Ivory is the paper's other representative on the NAC board.

The LDS Church has had direct representation by an ecclesiastical leader in the past. For 19 years, Thomas S. Monson, first counselor in the church's First Presidency was chairman of the board of Deseret News, and he was a member of the NAC board. In 1982, he helped craft a revised joint operating agreement.

"We say to the NAC that, yeah, this is OK to use your resources to go out and put this product out, and it's one that if the Tribune wants to do it, we're not going to block them," Wall said, noting that there have been other projects that have not been greenlighted.

He compared his newspaper's situation to that of KSL-TV -- also owned by the LDS Church -- and its network affiliation with NBC, which dictates much of the local programming.

"You have to try and accommodate and be careful," said Wall. "So we're not going to publish [In Utah This Week] and print it, and distribute it. But it's something our partner wants to do and we're comfortable supporting them."

How do LDS Church leaders feel about receiving profits from In Utah This Weekfi Scott Trotter, a representative in the church's Public Affairs department, said the church had no comment.

GRAPHIC CONTENT WARNING: The following contains sexually explicit material

EXCERPTS FROM IN UTAH THIS WEEK

From staff writer Sam Vicchrilli's review of a book by porn star Jenna Jameson titled "How to Make Love Like a Porn Star":

"Her best answer is, 'It's a lot of money for a little work.' I hope to see that phrase printed on T-shirts in junior high schools across the country.

"People seem to adore Jenna for two reasons: She's hot, and she appears to have a strong business sense. After all, she's made herself an empire in an industry where most women exit as fast as they entered, self-image and vaginas both bruised. ...

"Her promiscuous lifestyle is fascinating. While she expects monogamy out of her men, she can - - - - on and off screen with both sexes and not have anything to answer for."

From staff writer Kim Burgess's review of "Beauty's Punishment" by Anne Rice writing as A.N. Roquelaurie:

"Rice's beautiful, descripitions of people and places hold the story together. Sex scenes are equally well-written and often involve gay S & M, so if that isn't your cup of tea, look elsewhere. But if you love nothing more than a warm paddle in the morning, this is the book for you."

From Burgess's review of "Belle de Jour" by Anonymous:

"Why bother with narrative arc when you can depict candle wax used in unexpected waysfi

"That said, Belle is a clever and entertaining writer: Her prologue contains this little gem of observation: 'Prostitution is steady work but not demanding. I meet a lot of people. Granted, they're almost all men, most of whom I'll never see again, and I'm required to funk [spelling as published] them regardless of whether they're covered in hairy moles or have a grand total of three teeth."

From Vicchrilli's review of "Between Husband & Wife" by Stephen E. Lamb, M.D. and Douglas E. Brinley, Ph.D.:

"Couples in the book are quoted as 'crying great tears of joy' after sexual intercourse. ... What kind of backward wussies are thesefi The same kind that says the Lord should be involved in the lovemaking process. Not to sound blasphemous, but who wants to have a three-way with Godfi"

From Burgess's review of "Position of the Day Playbook" by Nerve.com:

"Your skills at 'downward dog' will come in handy when attempting the creative sex positions in this book from Nerve.com, which investigates every possible placement of two bodies in flagrante delicto. There's the 'hang bang' (man hanging from a bar), the 'sometimes you feel like a nut' ... and 'horny toad' ...My favorite is 'late night at Hogwarts,' which requires actual levitation on the lady's part. ... Strangely, the 'tootsie roll' position requires access to an enormous pipe ..."

From an article by Vicchrilli about a pornographic comic book:

"The audacious idea of fictional characters out of time and place is also behind Moore's pornographic comic 'Lost Girls,.' Wendy, Dorothy and Alice. ... now grown into maturity, meet at an Austrian hotel in 1913. Alice is the group's ringleader, initiating lesbian orgies and coaxing each girl to disclose her past (erotic) adventures. Dorothy discovers masturbation in a twister, Peter's peter takes Wendy to an unexpected heights and the Queen of hearts is not after Alice's head but rather enjoys watching her give it."

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page A1.