40 Years of City Weekly—Volume 20: 2003 to 2004 

The modern era was taking shape as City Weekly reached its 20th year. The United State's invasion of Iraq was generating criticism abroad and at home, as Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction appeared increasingly non-existent and as phrases like "exit strategy," "preemptive strike" and "enhanced interrogation" entered the lexicon.

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Now a mainstream technology, the internet was generating debate over file-sharing services like KaZaA and the "ripping" of CDs. Service providers were jockeying for market share, touting low prices and special services like spam email filters, while AOL was blanketing the earth with promotional software (including an insert in the June 19, 2003, issue) offering a limited number of free hours online. And with dial-up demand rapidly outpacing cities' aging communications infrastructure, some Utah municipalities—but not Salt Lake—banded together in a fiber-optic project called UTOPIA.

Gov. Mike Leavitt resigned mid-term to join the Bush administration as head of the Environmental Protection Agency, after denying for months that he'd be doing exactly that. His absence left Utah briefly governed for the first time—and so far only time—by a woman: Olene Walker.

Salt Lake City was in an Olympic hangover, with relaxed liquor laws and development deals disrupting the private club and restaurant markets. The Zephyr closed, Brick's became Sound and In the Venue, Siegfried's Delicatessen was forced to relocate and, in a bid to survive, the Dead Goat Saloon transformed into a strip joint called The Crazy Goat, angering its downtown neighbors and, in particular, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Those changes were indicative of an economic tug-of-war taking shape between an embattled Main Street downtown and a shiny new Gateway Mall, built for the games and luring institutions like The Salt Lake Tribune four blocks west.

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When downtown anchor Nordstrom eyed its own move to The Gateway, the Salt Lake City Council intervened and the LDS church committed to revamping its declining ZCMI Center and Crossroads Plaza properties, an effort that would result in the construction of City Creek Center.

They weren't the only ones betting on Main Street. KUTV 2 TV relocated to the Wells Fargo building, making a splash with its street-level studio overlooking Gallivan Plaza. Eagle-eyed viewers might spot their friends on the news, or the well-placed ads for KSL 5 on the Trax trains that passed behind the KUTV anchors. (Trax trains also began running until 1 a.m. on weekends, with UTA advertisements inviting nightlife patrons to "Linger later." That service, unfortunately, was cut back and today the trains, like most Utah lawmakers, are asleep by midnight.)

City Weekly took up residence on Main as well, above Sam Weller's Zion Bookstore, a point of pride that founder John Saltas often took note of in his new weekly column, Private Eye.

"There are three dominant papers in the Salt Lake Valley, and you're reading one of them," Saltas wrote, launching the new feature on Jan. 8, 2004, under the headline "Heeerre's Johnny!"

He noted that during 150 years of statehood, scores of newspapers had come and gone. And the other remaining papers in the valley, The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News, shared a propensity for "gushing over their so-called independence" while enjoying an "unfair, monopolistic marketplace advantage" in the form of their Joint Operating Agreement, or JOA.

"We've been defiant not because we're leftover hippies, not because we're anti-establishment, anti-government or anti-church (I was there on Sunday—were you?), not because we're rank amateurs and snot-nosed brats," Saltas wrote. "We just won't lie down for the buggers who want to bugger us. It feels weird to say it, but we've grown into a company now, not just a paper. But this company has the same attitude as the paper—that we will not be pushed around, that there are meaningful individuals and communities out there who need our voice, that there are hypocritical bastards out there who need the exposure of our warm sun and that there are institutions out there that need the type of probing examination only a kind proctologist like City Weekly is willing to administer."

Saltas frequently joked in his new column that he now wrote at the behest of Jim Rizzi, who took on the role of publisher at the start of 2004. A few months earlier, in September of 2003, Ben Fulton was named the paper's new editor.

In a Sept. 18 column on his promotion, Fulton described the gig as unglamorous, demanding and nerve-racking. "It's a lot like moving a king-size mattress up seven flights of stairs," Fulton wrote. "And I love it to pieces, even if sometimes I'm looking for the nearest cliff to jump off."

New digs, new leadership, new moxie—City Weekly was strong and hungry. But you wouldn't know talking to the local Society of Professional Journalists chapter. For the first time, the announcements inviting editors to apply to the SPJ's annual awards contest were sent via email, rather than through the post. And City Weekly's email was "accidentally" left off the CC'd list.

Remembering Vol. 20: In the race
Salt Lake City Mayor Ross C. "Rocky" Anderson was in a tough fight for a second term, heading into November against challenger Frank Pignanellii, who had made downtown decline a central component of his campaign. Anderson was also dogged by lingering resentments over the LDS church's acquisition of Main Street between South Temple and North Temple, a land-swap agreement Anderson inherited from Deedee Corradini but which bore fruit—including overzealous security enforcement, free speech protests and a lawsuit from the American Civil Liberties Union—during his administration.

Meanwhile, Anderson was busy evangelizing a new era for Main Street and downtown, and reacting poorly to those who were critical of his administration. When Pignanelli held a press conference on the steps of City Hall—noting high staff turnover as an argument against Anderon's "abrasive" leadership—the mayor crashed the event, telling reporters he was there to keep his challenger honest. Anderson was also found to have directed his campaign staff to compile a dossier on local news coverage deemed biased against him, taking particular aim at Salt Lake Tribune reporter Heather May.

"I feel I have an obligation to point these things out," Anderson told City Weekly's Jake Parkinson, according to an Oct. 2 report. "It is not one instance. I have seen a fairly consistent pattern that I think is misleading and puts a negative bent on City Hall."

The 145-page dossier, compiled by spokesman Josh Ewing, was "never meant for public consumption," Anderson said. Nevertheless, Parkinson reported that Ewing identified 45 instances of adversarial bias in the Tribune, from lack of coverage on the opening of a Sprinkles Ice Cream shop to the use of the phrase "flip-flop" in a way that strayed from Ewing's perceived definition of the term.

"You pick up a copy of The New York Times and read about the Dave Matthews concert in Central Park," Anderson said. "We should have similar upbeat stories in our papers."

Anderson would ultimately win reelection and, even more impressive, three Best of Utah awards that year, including Best Democrat, Best Sane Politician and Best Utahn. "In the past, Best Utahn might have meant the kind, agreeable, almost soporific personality who loved to cheer people up for any old reason," his blurb in City Weekly stated. "With Anderson, we finally have someone who'll shake your hand with a firm grip, share a good joke, then argue with you until the sun sets."

By 2004, Anderson would be featured in a different race—the first-ever Salt Lake City Marathon. Asked to speak while runners waited for the starting gun, a Hits and Misses column on April 29, 2004, chided the newly reelected mayor for a long-winded speech that prompted jeers—and some obscenities—from anxious participants.

By the next issue, race director Scott Kerr had written in to correct the record and keep City Weekly honest. "It is a necessary safety requirement to have a 10-minute lapse from the start of the wheelchair and handcycle divisions to the marathon start," Kerr wrote. "We were also experiencing some difficulty with the sound system. While the wireless microphones were being brought back on line, Anderson was asked to fill the time by speaking to the crowds of enthusiastic participants."

In the Market
It was a year of upheaval for local news. KRCL 90.9 FM launched RadioActive, originally as a live call-in program, while KUER 90.1 FM's move away from classical music was duplicating the schedule of other NPR affiliates and putting pressure on both KRCL and KCPW 88.3 FM.

For the state's major dailies, The Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News, the year would see big changes that set the course for rough years ahead, as both papers today are published only weekly, outside of downtown and under corporate structures that scarcely resemble their prior selves.

As City Weekly began its 20th year in print, the Deseret News became the Deseret Morning News, shifting away from its longstanding afternoon schedule (the News had merged its newsroom operations with KSL two years earlier, a forced marriage still finding its footing in 2003, and beyond).

The swap to a morning paper would lead to layoffs at the Newspaper Agency Corporation, or NAC, as the printing and distribution shop—co-owned by the Trib and DNews under their JOA—could consolidate its work shifts. But immediately after the switch, NAC CEO Joe Zerbey was effusive, praising the efficiency of his team and noting that the News appeared to have dodged a predicted subscriber exodus.

"My vice president of circulation keeps saying he's absolutely amazed at how smooth it's going. It's a testament to good planning," Zerbey said, according to a May 29 report by Shane McCammon. "My people did in nine months what it took Phoenix three years to do. They did in nine months what it took Seattle two years to do. I'm very proud of them."

Newsroom staff were less enthused. A morning paper required late-night print deadlines, common in the industry but nonetheless new at the time for the Deseret News. And as employees explained to McCammon, anonymously, the transition period required both a morning and afternoon paper, meaning double shifts for the production team.

"It's been tough to staff both night- and daytime shifts with no more people," one News employee said. "And the attitude is 'If you don't like it, leave,' which I don't think is healthy."

Another employee dinged upper-level editors for keeping the daytime routines they were accustomed to, continuing to schedule early-morning huddles that evening managers were expected to attend.

"Working nights is different," they said, "and although that is just the way the newspaper industry is, it hasn't been that way for the D-News people, and change is a bitch."

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But for the Tribune, 2003 to 2004 may have been the year to end all years. Its reputation damaged by the resignation of editor Jay Shellady—prompted by the scandal of two reporters selling information to the National Enquirer related to Elizabeth Smart's abduction—the paper had a new editor in Nancy Conway, a declining subscriber count and a controversial owner, Media News Group's Dean Singleton.

By mid-2004, it was becoming clear the Kearns-McCarthey family would fail to re-purchase the Tribune away from Singleton. Readers lamented the declining status of the state's paper of record and frequently took aim at "Carpetbagger Singleton," as he was described in a letter to the editor from Sandy's Stephen Schubach.

"Mr. Singleton would be better served if he kept his words to himself and not confirm for everyone his ignorance," Schubach wrote. "Dean Singleton single-handedly has been the most disruptive influence in Utah in the last decade. I submit that nothing he does or says reflects our community spirit or sense of loyalty."

Media News Group would go on to become an infamous destroyer of newsrooms around the country, demonstrating a habit of buying up struggling papers on the cheap, strip-mining their assets and then leaving them to whimper into oblivion. By mid-2004, this process had begun at the Tribune, with Singleton opting to move his newspaper to The Gateway and selling the historic Ezra Thompson Building at 143 S. Main, now the home of Neumont University.

"The Tribune's owners have said they want to sell the Tribune Building and move to more efficient digs. Gateway and office space on Main Street have been mentioned as possibilities," Ted McDonough reported on May 13, 2004.

News of the impending move prompted 55 Tribune employees to sign a letter warning Singleton that the relocation "would be a tremendous symbolic blow to the future of Main Street and a threat to the credibility of the paper's news coverage and editorializing on the subject."

The Tribune moved to The Gateway in 2005, where it remains today.

In the Debate
City Weekly's reporting generated significant dialogue among its readers, with letters to the editor every week on topics like the Iraq War and Bush administration, as well as Utah-specific stories like the closure of Salt Lake City schools (as divisive then as it is today, with the same trends at play), John Blodgett's investigation of the high rates of bankruptcy among Latter-day Saints, and Tim Sullivan's report on the "urban explorers" who made a hobby of trespassing the city's dilapidated and abandoned structures.

A Sept. 18, 2003, cover by Kristy Davis on Utah's vegan community generated a wave of letters that continued for months, with readers arguing the merits and challenges of a vegan diet and criticisms that Davis had focused too narrowly on the local vegans who overlapped with Straight Edge culture.

"If I go vegan, do I have to give up my dreams of being a straight-peg square with a wife, two kids, a mortgage and steady jay-oh-bee?" wrote Paul Ballard. "I just realized how much I sound like my granddad right now. He didn't like anyone. I will probably get hit in the back of the head with a skateboard, and I probably deserve it. Forget I said anything."

But the most-discussed topic of the year, by far, was LGBTQ rights. The United States was on a collision course with marriage equality, as court rulings in Massachusetts opened the door to the nation's first legal same-sex unions and other rulings struck down laws against sodomy and cohabitation. Faced with the prospect that judges could end "traditional" practices with the strike of a gavel, many states, including Utah, rushed to pass new statutes and prop up existing laws limiting marriage to one man and one woman.

Virtually every issue published during City Weekly's 20th year included letters on the subject of marriage equality, which also won Best Political Cause in that year's Best of Utah. Readers would go back and forth for weeks, some promoting the "hetero ideal" while others shared personal stories of exclusion and discrimination. In a March 11 letter, La Verkin's Aimee Marie Selfridge described the pain of watching President George W. Bush call for a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage.

"He declared in front of millions, probably billions of people, that I am 'a threat to the sanctity of marriage' and that I am unnatural and 'weakening the good influence of society.'" Selfridge wrote. "With tears streaming down my face, I listened as he called to the masses to 'protect marriage' from me."

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The topic took center stage in a cover story on April 15, 2004, in which Barney Hadden interviewed Mormon-raised C. Jay Cox, who directed the film Latter Days about a closeted LDS missionary who has a secret relationship with his neighbor.

"It's not like a personal screed against Mormonism," Cox said. "I just wrote it from my experience having been on both sides. I guess, possibly, one of the things people don't like about the movie is the possibility that it presents an alternate viewpoint."

In a letter to the editor on May 6, 2004, Jay Bosworth of Salt Lake City wrote about pushing away the memories of his own mission, from the terror of first arriving in a strange country, to confessing his "sins" to the mission president and coming home early, and the inappropriately probing questions asked of him by "the brethren" of his local congregation.

"I have always wanted to put 'my experience' into words, if only to exorcise the demons of self-loathing and regret that the church so readily instills in its followers, and this great article leaves me prompted to do so," Bosworth wrote. "Now more than ever, it is important that those who suffered similar spiritual and emotional abuse speak up, that we make our stories heard."

Other letter writers scoffed at the sophistry of Utah elected leaders, who were simultaneously working to loosen concealed carry and weapons possessions laws while trying to prevent the LGBTQ community from legitimizing their relationships.

"At least gay couples may carry their concealed firearms to school and church," wrote James Hull of Salt Lake City on Feb. 12, 2004. "Rest assured, no person in Utah shall ever be denied that privilege." CW