Digitized Channel 6 News provides ‘invaluable’ record of Moab in transition

Jim Mattingly is a semi-retired videographer, with a careers-worth of experience in high-end digital work. A longtime resident of Moab, he’s shot everything from international commercials to music videos. 

But it’s his old school work – his work in analog tape – that tells a compelling story. The story of Moab at a time of incredible transition. 

In 1989, Mattingly interviewed then-Grand County Commission Chair Merv Lawten “at the very start of the mountain biking….All of a sudden – here’s all these people camping up and down the river. And there’s no facilities.” 

Archival Audio: 

MERV LAWTON (ARCHIVE CHANNEL 6): We had a problem in the spring when we had the big influx of the fat tire bicycle people. I can see that coming again in the fall.

JIM MATTINGLY (ARCHIVE CHANNEL 6): Okay, so you’re going to address this at your next county commission meeting?

MERV LAWTON (ARCHIVE CHANNEL 6): It wasn’t on the agenda. But it has to be a decision that is made by the county commission…The other aspect is, is that the bicyclists and campers themselves could come along and find the place very unattractive because of that [waste] and then will they come back? If they don’t come back then all the effort and money that people like the travel council and the film commission have spent on bringing people in has gone to naught.

Moab’s Channel 6 News first began in the 1950s, one of the first cable television news programs in the nation. Throughout the years it was helmed by some truly notable characters, including Dee Tranter. 

In the 1980s, Tranter was working as the owner, operator, reporter and anchor at Channel 6 when he asked a young Mattingly to “take over the news.”

Mattingly replied, “Well, I don’t know Dee [Tranter], I don’t have any money or anything. I can’t afford to buy it. And [Tranter] says, ‘I’ll just give it to you.’ And by giving it to me, it consisted of a desk and a file cabinet. So it wasn’t all that much.” 

Mattingly agreed to take on the production of the Channel 6 News – pending several conditions. First, he asked Tranter to stay on as anchor. 

“I’m not going to go on camera – not with this face,” jokes Mattingly. 

Second, Mattingly decided that Channel 6 would no longer be shot live. It would be taped. 

This decision to ‘go to tape,’ is the reason Moab now has this incredible archive. 

Archival Audio:

DEE TRANTER (ARCHIVE CHANNEL 6): Welcome to our TV 6 News report. I’m Dee Tranter with the roundup of news of interest to Moab and the Canyonlands area. Let’s take a quick look at the weather forecast. And I think I mentioned that nights are starting to get a little bit cooler, looks like we’re a little ahead of schedule. Fall may be coming in a little early this year. 

“Museum collections, we have a lot of photos, and we have oral history, so we have audio, and we have a lot of written records. But what we don’t have a lot of is film,” said Tara Beresh, curatorial and collections manager at the Moab Museum. “Film allows an audience to see for themselves all of the nuance and the things that are really pertinent to history and the historical record that you can’t misconstrue it as easily. It’s right there.” 

The Utah State Historical Records Advisory Board awarded the Moab Museum a grant to digitize the Channel 6 News. In a press release, the museum called the Channel 6 News tapes, spanning from 1989 to 2000, an “invaluable” record of first-hand accounts of how Moab became the tourism destination it is today.

“I think this is an excellent opportunity to preserve that,” said Beresh. “It’s a piece of history. It’s a piece of time that predates the big [tourism] boom.” 

According to the Moab Museum’s estimates, digitization will preserve over 2,000 news broadcasts. Beresh says there are a number of questions that could be answered in this process, including “who were the people here then? And how were they living their lives and what was changing? And how were they experiencing those changes?” 

In 1989, Channel 6 News anchor Dee Tranter gave an update on the prospective Book Cliffs highway from Moab to Vernal – a subject that still draws controversy to this day. 

Archival Audio: 

DEE TRANTER (ARCHIVE CHANNEL 6): A poll taken by Moab Chamber of Commerce regarding that Book Cliffs road has been announced. The area has, of course, drawn some controversy and considerable interest in our area…A few of the comments made by the business community ranged from ‘too many unanswered questions,’ ‘not worth the cost,’ to others stating that the road would open up mineral development and establish a community interest between Moab and Vernal. 

Dee Tranter during a broadcast of the Channel 6 News. Tranter gave the news operation to Jim Mattingly in the 1980s, but agreed to stay on as anchor.

Mattingly says local advertising helped support the channel. While he didn’t quite go broke, he says he pretty much broke even. It was tough at times. And he still waxes on about the people and businesses who really supported the news effort. 

“I slowly picked up sponsors,” says Mattingly. I mean, John Fogg, who had the insurance company, supported Channel 6 News like nobody else.”

Archival Audio:

JOHN FOGG COMMERCIAL (ARCHIVE CHANNEL 6): Hi, I’m John Fogg, your local independent insurance agent. We’ve been serving the Moab area since 1955. Central Utah Insurance Agency has a company that fits just about any need. Just look at what we can do for you!

Moab’s Channel 6 News aired three times per day. The new broadcast came out in the evening, and there were two rebroadcasts the next day. When the news wasn’t on, you could still flip to Channel 6 for information. 

“It was called a roller,” said Mattingly. “And [it] was like a print ad.”

The roller showed a few business advertisements and the weather. Mattingly remembers improvising when the roller stopped working for a time. 

“I got a goldfish and put it on camera. And then I hand wrote a little sign ‘Channel 6 News’ with the time on it.” said Mattingly. “People kind of enjoyed it. Except I did get some complaints because two or three people called me up and said, ‘you never feed that fish.’ Well, I do feed it because it’s still alive.”

John Fogg on Channel 6 advertising his local insurance company

Mattingly can get a little sheepish when it comes to the production value of the Channel 6 News. The anchor is seated at a desk, in a simple ‘talking head format.’ And the early cutaways to commercials or field interviews can make him visibly cringe sometimes. 

“I was just learning,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was doing. And the technology was primitive at that time.”

But the one thing he’s absolutely not sheepish about? It’s influence. 

“Basically, Channel 6 was responsible – well, I know it was responsible – for the change of government back in the early 1990s,” he said. Because people saw what was going on. And they said ‘we can’t do this, we’ve got to change this.’” 

That’s because Channel 6 News began showing up to local government meetings, even after the county commission conspicuously changed their meeting time. 

“They would have their county commission meetings usually on Monday or Tuesday nights around six or eight. Well, they started doing some really interesting stuff – I’ll put it that way.”

Politics, says Mattingly, has always been a bloodsport in Moab. 

“And so what they did, they changed county commission meetings to Monday morning at nine. Well, nobody can show up,” he said. “Everybody’s gotta go to work Monday morning at nine o’clock. Well, we showed up.” 

And they kept showing up. Channel 6 provided a visual record of those meetings and the hot button issues of the day. Mattingly says this helped motivate residents to change the form of county government from a three member commission to a seven member council. 

Jim Mattingly (right) interviews Moab’s former mayor, Tom Stocks, during a Channel 6 News broadcast

In addition to local government, Channel 6 was covering cops and courts, community affairs, high school sports, and upcoming events. 

In this tape, Christy Williams-Dunton conducts field interviews with local students participating in a 4H fashion show about their homemade clothing. 

Archival Audio: 

CHRISTY WILLIAMS DUNTON (ARCHIVE CHANNEL 6): That’s so fun. Did you choose the pattern yourself? 

KID (ARCHIVE CHANNEL 6): Mm-hmm. 

CHRISTY WILLIAMS DUNTON (ARCHIVE CHANNEL 6): Now this is through 4H. Have you been in 4H before or just this first year? 

KID (ARCHIVE CHANNEL 6): I’ve been in 4H for three years. 

CHRISTY WILLIAMS DUNTON (ARCHIVE CHANNEL 6): What’s your favorite thing? 

KID (ARCHIVE CHANNEL 6): Mm, lambs. 

“I would say that because there is a digitized record of my history. I just think it’s a humble thing, a beautiful thing,” says Williams-Dunton. 

Williams-Dunton went on to do a lot of things, including growing KZMU Moab Community Radio. But back when she worked for Channel 6, she was just out of communications school. 

“So I am sure that I felt some pride at having made the big time of being on TV,” Williams-Dunton said. “It still tickles me because it’s so low-fi. So analog for television. And so small of a market. Small town journalism is its own animal. And so the fact that we had a television station. Yeah, I’m tickled to be a part of its history.”

Christy Williams Dunton delivers the news during a Channel 6 News broadcast

KZMU News asked Williams-Dunton how she feels about becoming immortalized in the Channel 6 News archives. 

“Oh, Lord,” she says. “I can’t make any excuses for the fashion of the 1980s. I looked at a picture the other day, and I was like, ‘wow, okay.’ The sleeves are very puffy. They’re very puffy.” 

Archival Audio:

DEE TRANTER (ARCHIVE CHANNEL 6): I also might mention the Colorado River while still running at a little higher level than it was several weeks ago, is running very thick and muddy and a lot of debris from forest fires still in the river after recent rains again washing a lot of black burned material into the river. 

Speaking of the river, that Blue Ribbon Committee held a recent meeting. We’ll have a report on that. And also I’ll have the final list of candidates for this fall’s local election. And a report on an illegal slaughtering of a lamb in the La Sal mountain. I’ll have those stories and more news all coming up in just a moment. 

It’s amazing to all involved that Channel 6 News existed here in tiny Moab – and for so long.  

Mattingly eventually sold the channel to Emery Telcom in 2000. He was tired, wanted a change and sincerely hoped it would continue. But it no longer had the right combination of factors. 

“It takes a lot of work. It takes money. And you’ve got to have the right kind of people to do it,” he said. 

Moab might no longer have its own local television news channel, but the town does have these archives. Mattingly himself is carefully digitizing them in real time, a process he estimates will take several months. 

“There’s six programs on a two-hour tape. And so I can put a tape in, start it, and then today I went out and took a walk,” said Mattingly. “That’s the downside of real time. It’s like, ‘oh, I hope I live that long.’”

Digitizing the Channel 6 News will be a labor of love. And when it’s all done, the Moab Museum plans to make the archive easily available online. So the community will forever have this visual record of a seminal period in Moab history. 

Archival Audio:

DEE TRANTER (ARCHIVE CHANNEL 6): That’s news for today, news of our Moab and Canyonlands country. We hope you enjoy a good day.