News strives for fairness — balance, not any bias

In this business, fairness has to be the pulse that courses ink through our veins. But it can also be a sort of Rorschach test. What looks fair to me may look like something completely different to you.

And it's a difficult concept to explain when your business involves presenting opinions — yours, the paper's, selected columnists' and readers'. Opinions, by their nature, are not fair. And yet, we go to great lengths to be fair and honest in the way we present them. When we attack someone or something, we allow those parties to respond. We make sure our readers' forum reflects the feelings of the people who bother to send us letters.

We're not perfect, but we try hard to be fair. When someone attacks those efforts, I feel the need to respond.

Toward the end of the recent mayoral race in Salt Lake City, we were attacked publicly by a couple of like-minded sources. One came as a total surprise to me. Ted Wilson, former mayor of Salt Lake City and the Democratic half of the weekly Webb-Wilson column that ran on this page, decided to quit. Among other things, he cited the "framing of the column by the editors." Specifically, he objected to how we had put a note at the top of his column the previous week stating that he is a friend and adviser to Mayor Rocky Anderson. The Salt Lake Tribune, in a column on his decision to quit, mentioned a perceived bias at this paper against Anderson.

The other source was less of a surprise. It was Anderson himself. Once in a phone conversation with me and again in a radio interview on the night of the election, he complained about a lack of fairness at this paper. Specifically, he was upset by the number of letters to the editor we ran either favoring his opponent or criticizing Anderson himself.

To some extent, politicians can be forgiven for comments such as these. They are involved in what amounts to do-or-die popularity contests, and they tend to view everything written about them the way an eagle views colors, vividly and in great detail. But, unlike eagles, too often they see things that really aren't there.

I'll answer Wilson's concerns first. First, I am sorry he no longer wishes to write the column. He was a valued voice on this page each week. But he couldn't be more wrong on this subject. He is, in fact, a close friend and adviser to the mayor. He actively campaigned for Anderson, appearing in some advertisements on his behalf.