40 Years of City Weekly—Volume 19: 2002 to 2003 

Ten years after moving to weekly publication, John Saltas noted on May 30, 2002, that with 26 employees, scores of freelancers and distribution drivers and printing 60,000 papers every week, "we're quite content just the way things are. Outside of not having Deedee Corradini to kick around anymore, that is."

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But then, things seldom stand still for very long. During this year, City Weekly bid adieu to Christopher Smart as managing editor and welcomed John Yewell for what would be a brief nine-month turn at the helm. And we weren't the only ones going through shakeups. The Tribune got a new owner in Dean Singleton; the Utah Starzz left for San Antonio; and the debacle over First Amendment rights and easement control continued to simmer around a plaza on Main Street acquired in the late '90s by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Ben Fulton wrote of the life, murder and artwork of Salt Lake's Valarie Martinez; Rebecca Vernon reported on Mormon rockers; Scott Lewis tackled the coverage of Elizabeth Smart's abduction and discovery; and Katharine Biele covered a ballot initiative opposing the storage of radioactive waste in Utah by the Envirocare company.

"Every issue is just another issue," concluded Saltas in that May 30 editorial, "one more chance to get it right, and one more chance to kick some pompous ass right in the ass. I'll always enjoy that."

Remembering Vol. 19: In the fog
Throughout 2002, the Bush administration had been laying the groundwork for an American invasion of Iraq in domestic pronouncements, as well as before the international community. By October, Congress granted the president sanction to act against Saddam Hussein's government by "any means necessary."

The instruments of peace also sounded across the pages of City Weekly during its 19th year. Utah activists organized gatherings across eight major cities in the Beehive State on Oct. 7 to coincide with a "National Day of Protest Against War in Iraq." The Salt Lake City rally was held at the Wallace F. Bennett Federal Building and attended by fathers, mothers, siblings, veterans, businesspeople and youth carrying signs, standing in silent prayer and signing peace pledges.

Simple gestures like these were not viewed with much favor by commentators, Paul Swenson noted on Oct. 17, what with the testy media atmosphere concerning peace activism, and the pressures that war fever was having on institutions like The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

After LDS Apostle Russell M. Nelson delivered a sermon in the church's General Conference, renouncing war and proclaiming peace in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, the institution received media inquiries in view of hostilities with Iraq. Church public affairs spokesman Dale Bills immediately scuttled the subject, saying that Nelson's discourse had been "oversimplified" by reporters.

"While half a million Europeans have rallied to oppose a U.S. attack on Iraq (with scant news coverage here), even slight deviations from the national war mood appear to make provincial local media and LDS church leaders nervous," Swenson concluded. "If we can't debate war and peace issues without allegations of disloyalty, what would be worth fighting for?"

Other peace demonstrations followed, particularly after warfare commenced in 2003. Eleanor Inskip and Tom King—founding members of the grassroots People for Peace and Justice in Utah—put together such events as a Jan. 18 vigil and march to Washington Square, in cooperation with the World Federalist Association, the National Conference for Community and Justice and Mormons for Equality and Social Justice. Roughly 3,000 people attended the event.

Besides discrete organizations, many citizens voiced their own misgivings and opposition to the Iraq War, from weekly "Honk for Peace" demonstrations every Thursday in front of the federal building to letters published in the paper.

Michael Dodd, a Marine vet, wondered in a Feb. 6 missive whether reinstating the draft would reawaken citizens into questioning national policies, as in Vietnam, and for armchair hawks to finally lose their sway over the public mind.

"We have come full circle," he remarked. "Our complacent populace rarely exercises its right to vote, and our military is comprised mostly of the economically disadvantaged. Currently, the middle and upper classes remain largely unaffected by our president's desire to destroy Iraq in a unilateral display of Western justice for all."

Others, like educator Ljubica Roth, looked to what might be done to build a better future. Roth was then the director of the Utah Peace Institute and an adviser for one of its extension programs, the Young Refugees of Utah for World Peace. She observed that the first hurdle to achieving peace was to have a grasp of what peace even is.

"Peace is not just the opposite of war," Roth told Ben Fulton on Sept. 5. "Peace is the highest level of human thinking. You find that for many people, trying to describe peace is like trying to describe a color."

In retrospect
For the July 25 issue of 2002, the staff at CW looked back in celebration of 10 years as a weekly. Preceding issues had prepared for the occasion with a "Word on the Street" section featuring feedback from locals about what the paper meant to them and the announcement of a July 27 anniversary party at the Gallivan Center.

When the anniversary edition was published, it provided readers with humorous lists, recollections from Weekly contributors both past and present, a face reveal of longtime satirist D.P. Sorensen, and a countdown of what the staff judged to be the paper's 20 best and worst moments. Below is a sampling of what the staff judged to be among their notable highlights:

Best: "The Spooky Past of Bob Bennett',' Tom Walsh, 1992: "Our debut weekly issue also featured this blazing account of then-U.S. Senate candidate Bob Bennett's connections to the Watergate scandal that brought down President Nixon. Congressional investigators said Bennett had a hand in Watergate burglar Howard Hunt's activities before the break-in, and a government committee even questioned Bennett as to why he didn't go to the authorities when, by all evidence, he had foreknowledge about a possible break-in at the hotel."

Worst: Mysterious sandwich in "Sallah's Secret Swiss Bank Account," Lynn Packer, 1994: "Delving deep into the inner machinations of the Bonneville Pacific maze, Packer found a whole load of secret Swiss bank accounts that company officers used for keeping their jet-set lifestyles flush. Illustrating methods of money-laundering, Packer explained two time-worn techniques: the 'Dutch Sandwich' technique of layering overseas bank accounts and the 'Swiss Sandwich' variation. So, of course, we had to have a photo of a sandwich in the layout. Problem was, this was before the days when our bare-strings editorial staff (an army of two) proofread the layout before it went to the printer. So, there it was. A photo of a sandwich. Without a caption. Without explanation."

Best: "Naked Truth," David Madison, 1997: "Not that West Jordan mayoral candidate Kelly Atkinson wasn't already struggling with allegations of sexual harassment and impropriety. ... Voters figured where there's smoke there's fire, and Atkinson lost his mayoral bid. But, perhaps for a brief moment, [Utah Eagle Forum's] Gayle Ruzicka loved us. Well, at least she interviewed Madison over live radio. Atkinson's been threatening to sue us ever since."

Worst: The sexist-fest female butt cover for "1998 in Review": "In a word, unforgivable. Really, really unforgivable. Even our copy editor at the time, Kristen Riedelbach, protested mightily. If only we'd listened. Sure, it was for the holidays. Sure, we all wanted time off for Christmas. And we needed a 'clever' cover idea. Pronto. But just like mother taught you, shortcuts only come back to haunt you in the long run. How true. In this instance, we even overlooked the opportunity to work a pun somewhere. ... At least, a later story on the legal battle between Utah's two bikini teams, 'Tit for Tat,' had a measure of sass and sense."