Shelledy adds, "Rocky is a person who believes passionately in what he is doing and trying to accomplish. That is an endearing feature, but it sometimes blinds him to the virtue of objective reporting of those undertakings. Just going out and getting somebody who disagrees with what Rocky is doing for a quote is annoying" to him.

Current Tribune Editor Nancy Conway adds the Tribune made no changes in its coverage of City Hall and did not reassign May. She adds she has not heard further complaints from the mayor in a long time — although he visited her with a group of merchants who complained that coverage of downtown issues was too negative.

Anderson says he is disappointed in the Tribune's response to his complaints. "What I have seen in response, as a whole, has not been professional concern about truth and integrity. It's been a circling of the wagons and incredible defensiveness."

The Morning News filed a request under state open records laws for any files the mayor kept about other reporters or newspapers, similar to the one he developed (and provided) about the Tribune and May. He said he has no similar files on others.

Rocky vs. City Weekly

City Weekly, a free alternative newspaper, was the first to publicly report about the file Anderson developed on the Tribune and May — and it helped diminish what had been generally friendly relations between itself and the mayor. Anderson was a lawyer for that newspaper before he became a politician.

Anderson says about its coverage of the report on May, "The City Weekly, in characteristic fashion, termed it a dossier, which it was not. It was simply an analysis."

He adds, "I was frankly surprised at City Weekly. It used to pride itself as sort of taking on the establishment and particularly the mainstream media. All of a sudden, it uncritically came to the defense of the Salt Lake Tribune and its reporter rather than taking a look at the merits of what we had to say because we gathered some very serious questions."

John Saltas, founder of City Weekly and its executive editor, says when it runs stories critical of Anderson, the mayor has complained to him, "Why does so-and-so hate me? I am trying to do a great thing, and you are undermining my work."

He adds, "Conversely, whenever you are writing good things about him, you are on his Christmas Card A-list." Saltas says he and his newspaper praise Anderson when he deserves it and criticize him when merited — and Saltas criticized Anderson in columns several times in recent months for such things as crossing a picket line at a mayors' convention.