That prompted Anderson to say, "John Saltas, for some reason, in his columns the last few months seems to have some bone to pick with me, which really bothers me since I consider him to be a good friend of many years. . . . I think he's probably hanging out with the likes of (Anderson critic) Dave Owen or something. I like Saltas a lot. I feel very badly."

Saltas responded, "My opinions aren't shaped by Dave Owen or anyone," and he said that was a cheap shot. "You still have to print what you feel, friendships aside. We're reporters and opinionmakers. If he does something objectionable, we have to comment on it."

Rocky vs. TV news?

While Anderson often calls newspapers to complain, he says, "I think all the TV folks do a really good job." He says he has never called them to complain. Then he adds with a laugh, "Of course, I don't watch TV, which may be part of it, and I do read our newspapers."

News directors at local TV stations generally back up Anderson. Con Psarras at KSL-TV remembers only one complaint call from the mayor over the past four years. Steve Chalier at KUTV remembers only one call in the past three years. News directors at Fox 13 and ABC 4 say they do not remember any complaint calls from the mayor.

Ewing, Anderson's former communications director, said Anderson complains less to TV stations for two reasons:

"A.) He reads the newspapers. B.) They have a mechanism for correction," Ewing says. "In a 30-second TV report, there's a little less time to make technical errors. So he's a little more forgiving. He knows they have to generalize."

Rocky vs. Morning News

Anderson reserves his most scathing criticism for the Deseret Morning News. He not only accuses it of sloppy reporting but also of manipulating letters to the editor and columns against him — and using religion to divide the community and attack him.

First, as an example of his assertions of sloppy reporting, Anderson even cut off all communications for a time this year with Morning News City Hall reporter Brady Snyder — asserting he made errors too often.

Anderson points to a story that raised questions about whether his use of city e-mail for campaign purposes was legal. The story said the e-mails raised the eyebrows of City Council Chairwoman Jill Remington Love and said she instructed her staff to look into what is allowable. Anderson said Love called him to say she had been misquoted.

"She called me and said, 'I have had it with Brady.' It was the day she was going in for a C-section. . . . I said let's talk about this after you have had your baby." But Anderson sent word to Snyder that he would no longer talk to him until he ran a correction and apologized for the story.