"[8] Fitzpatrick's legacy as the architect of accommodation between members of the LDS Church and non-Mormons in Salt Lake was such that his obituary in Time Magazine was titled "The Peacemaker.
Both papers pushed hard to increase circulation over the next four years, with aggressive promotions that included prize giveaways.
Fitzpatrick needed to sell off of company assets to acquire Kearns's 40 percent interest, or control of the paper would fall out of family hands.
The Deseret News and the Tribune entered into a joint operating agreement whereby they combined the advertising and printing business of the two papers; editorially they remained separate.
David O. McKay, president of the LDS Church, viewed this as the only way the church-owned Deseret News could survive.
[10] As part of the deal, The Tribune sold the afternoon paper, The Salt Lake Telegram, to the Deseret News; this gave Fitzpatrick the funds to buy out Thomas F. Kearns, the largest stockholder of the Kearns Corporation, owner of the Tribune.
He met every Tuesday morning with McKay and Gus P. Backman, the secretary of the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce.
These breakfast meetings started with the creation of the Centennial Commission in the early 1940s, and continued until Fitzpatrick's death.