Rocky vs. S.L. Tribune

Such feelings led Anderson to an organized complaint campaign last year against the Salt Lake Tribune and its City Hall reporter, Heather May. (May declined comment for this story.) Anderson had Ewing compile what became a 142-page packet outlining their gripes.

Ewing said they focused on the Tribune "because it is bigger and read by more of his constituents than any other paper and was the one that had been getting under his skin the most at the time."

The packet included analysis of why the mayor's office felt 36 stories in 2002 and 2003 were wrong or misleading. It even quoted portions of the code of ethics adhered to by the Society of Professional Journalists. The analysis contended the ethics code had been violated by each story in question.

One example is a story by May saying the City Council chairman criticized Anderson for a "flip-flop" on whether to allow Nordstrom to move to The Gateway, which originally was designed to be a no-department-store zone to help protect Main Street.

The mayor's staff wrote that characterizing Anderson's position change as a flip- flop "is unfair and misleading. A flip-flop is when someone changes positions for no reason or for some dishonest motive." However, Webster's Collegiate Dictionary contains no such definition. It defines flip-flop simply as "a sudden reversal of direction or point of view."

The packet also contains seven examples of stories that it said the Tribune missed or gave short shrift. Among the examples were Deseret Morning News clips about national environmental awards won by Anderson.

Anderson's review also complained the Tribune ignored a mayor-hosted opening of an ice cream store on Main Street but the next day covered a press conference held nearby by Anderson's mayoral opponent, Frank Pignanelli, in which he charged that Anderson is doing too little to save Main Street.

Anderson says that when he took the packet and talked to Tribune editors, "They conceded that in certain instances, yes indeed, there was a serious problem. But more often than not, the then-editor (Jay Shelledy) . . . would shrug his shoulders and say nobody cares about it."

Tribune editors remember it differently. Shelledy, who has since left the Tribune, said, "I don't think Heather May was doing a bad job at all." He says he told Anderson, "I don't think people are reading this the same way as you, and I do not think you are being attacked at all. . . . When all is said and done, people won't remember that particular quote anyway."