“We’ve never called for him to resign,” George Pyle, The Tribune’s editorial page editor, said on Tuesday. “We have said more than once that he promised in 2012 that he would not run again and should keep that promise.”

The newspaper clearly suspected that the editorial might be misinterpreted, even by Mr. Hatch himself. “These things are often misunderstood. So, lest our readers, or the honoree himself, get the wrong impression, let us repeat the idea behind The Salt Lake Tribune’s Utahn of the Year designation,” the piece begins.

The dubious honor is bestowed on the Utahn who, over the past year, “has done the most” — meaning made the most news or had the biggest impact, for good or for ill.

The editorial criticized the “dramatic dismantling” of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments, both in Utah, and claimed that the move was essentially a political favor granted by the White House in return for Mr. Hatch’s support of President Trump and of the Republican tax plan.

Mr. Hatch, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, praised Mr. Trump at a White House gathering on Wednesday, two days before Mr. Trump signed the tax bill into law. “You’re one heck of a leader,” he told Mr. Trump.