The "pub tab" reference arose because the bill was from a brew pub. The initial article didn't put a large focus on this lesser bill, but in later articles the paper has noted Anderson's description that it was mostly food with some beer.

Reporting: Some media reports have said city tax dollars were used to pay for Anderson's Torino trip, which included his girlfriend and other noncity employees. Those reports noted tax dollars were then paid back by private donations.

Anderson: This assertion is absolutely false.

It is being reported based on lazy reporters who either don't do enough of their own investigation or who try to condense the information and end up misrepresenting the facts. Oftentimes this misreporting arises from slanted reporting or slanted headlines in newspaper articles like the one in the Deseret Morning News stating "Rocky to pay back tax dollars."

Analysis: In fact, no tax dollars were used to pay for Anderson's portion of the Torino trip, according to city finance officers. No tax dollars were loaned or fronted for the Torino portion either. Instead, tax dollars were used to pay initial costs of the trek, including partial funding of a documentary film and a kick-off celebration for the journey, which took nearly four months to get from Salt Lake City to Torino. So tax dollars weren't used for the European portion of the trip and the tax dollars that were used were like loans for the initial costs and were repaid by private donations, according to Anderson.

Some media haven't drawn a distinction between tax dollars paying for up-front costs of the total journey and tax dollars paying for Anderson's portion of the trip, which was in the final stage of the overall voyage.