Lauren Gustus became Executive Editor of The Salt Lake Tribune in fall of 2020. The Tribune is the only major metro news organization to become a nonprofit. It achieved sustainability in 2021 under Lauren’s leadership.
In 2022, The Tribune became a founding member of the Great Salt Lake Collaborative, a group of 23 organizations focused on elevating solutions to the lake’s challenges. It also shares its daily reporting with journalism partners throughout the state through the Utah News Collaborative.
Lauren previously worked for McClatchy as West Region Editor, overseeing 10 news organizations in Idaho, Washington and California, including the flagship Sacramento Bee.
Lauren has also served as an editor in Colorado, where her work on transparency contributed to a new law that facilitated greater access to public records, and in Reno, where her team’s work on the housing crisis was recognized nationally.
She is a coach in the Media Transformation Challenge at The Poynter Institute, supporting other news leaders as they look to make performance-driven change.
Utah is a homecoming for Lauren, who met her husband while working as a reporter at The Tribune in the early 2000s. The couple and their two sons enjoy camping, skiing and playing and coaching soccer.