Salt Lake City Weekly
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The Salt Lake City Weekly is a free alternative weekly tabloid-paged newspaper published in Salt Lake City, Utah. It began its life as the Private Eye. The City Weekly is published and dated for every Thursday by Copperfield Publishing Inc. of which John Saltas is majority owner and president. Circulation is 60,500.
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[edit] History
John Saltas founded what would become the Salt Lake City Weekly in June, 1984. He called his monthly publication the Private Eye, so named because it contained news and promotions for bars and dance clubs, which due to Utah State liquor laws were all private clubs. Saltas originally mailed the Private Eye as a newsletter to private club members. State law forbade private clubs from advertising at the time, so Saltas' newsletter was the only way for clubs to get promotional information out.
In 1988, the Private Eye became a bi-weekly newspaper although it was available mostly in clubs. Distribution of the paper broadened as new liquor rule interpretations at the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (DABC) allowed mainstream media to carry club advertisements as long as they weren't "soliciting" members. The "Private Eye" thus ended its mailed period and was available for free in public distribution outlets for the first time. In 1989, Private Eye was admitted to the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (AAN).
[edit] Private Eye Weekly
In 1992 the Private Eye Weekly emerged as a weekly tabloid-style alternative paper with distribution outlets in Salt Lake City, Ogden, Park City and Utah County. Saltas hired his first editor, then-KSL-TV journalist Tom Walsh. Walsh took a significant salary cut because of his enthusiasm for the newspaper.
The Private Eye's early contributors included Ben Fulton, now editor of the paper, Christopher Smart, now a reporter for The Salt Lake Tribune, and notable Utah defense attorney Ron Yengich. From 1992 onward, reporter Lynn Packer wrote many stories about then-Salt Lake City Mayor Deedee Corradini, and Bonneville Pacific, an energy company.
In the early 1990s the paper began giving out yearly awards that were chosen by readers. The categories and pages devoted to the "Best of Utah" issues expanded over time, and these issues are typically the largest published all year. Many establishments proudly display City Weekly "Best of..." awards, and often have several years worth mounted above the cash register.
Another yearly theme issue concerns local music. In 1996 these issues were dubbed the "SLAMMY awards" (Salt Lake Area Music & More). Like the "Best of Utah" issue, locals are encouraged to vote for their favorite local bands and albums in different categories. The paper also hosts a party featuring several of the winners.
In 1996 the Private Eye Weekly outgrew independent local presses and made arrangements with the publisher of the Ogden Standard-Examiner which have endured ever since. Content for the City Weekly is sent by computer to the press in Ogden, and bundles of printed papers are trucked back south into Salt Lake City. The paper also began posting all content online in 1996. The City Weekly uses the URL [1] and starting in 2005 began posting additional information on a sister-commerce site, [2]
[edit] Salt Lake City Weekly
In 1997 the growing paper changed its name to the Salt Lake City Weekly. This name is abbreviated to City Weekly on the paper's masthead.
The paper published stories of the 2002 Winter Olympics bribery scandal. Discoveries that International Olympic Committee members apparently accepted gifts in return for votes to select Salt Lake City as the Olympic host erupted into an internationally-significant story in 1999 and 2000.
During the late 1990's, a suit to allow club and liquor advertising began making its way through local courts. The case dragged on for years in Utah District Court which ultimately rejected the claim that advertising liquor in Utah was bound by national precedent. However, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned this ruling in a July 24, 2001 appeal, making liquor advertisements legal in Utah. In response to this, John Saltas offered a full-page ad to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (sometimes called the LDS Church or the Mormons) so they could explain their position against liquor advertising. The Church had not previously advertised in the paper which was often labeled "anti-Mormon", but they took Saltas up on his offer. On November 29, 2001 the City Weekly published the LDS statement. In the same issue, City Weekly featured its first liquor ad, for Jim Beam. Saltas told the Tribune that the timing was a coincidence.
In 2001, Gayle Ruzicka, president of the conservative Utah Eagle Forum, spoke extensively against the City Weekly. Ruzicka said that she found same-sex personal classified ads "pornographic", and other features distasteful, and (unsuccessfully) lobbied to have the newspaper banned from government buildings. She furthermore wanted rules to prevent children from reaching the paper, but was unable to effect change. Instead, the Eagle Forum pushed for a conservative "alternative to the alternatives."
In the summer of 2002, the City Weekly's format was imitated by the Utah Weekly, a short-lived alternative weekly with a conservative bent. This publication encountered financial problems. Irregular publication ensued as the paper was unable to live up to its "weekly" title. In spite of some conservatives' support, the Utah Weekly folded in September 2003 after 70 weeks, having produced only 25 issues. Its owners, Rich Kuchinsky and Mike Weber, were unable to pay writers and creditors.
In October 2002, editor Christopher Smart left the City Weekly for a higher-paying news position with The Salt Lake Tribune. Saltas named John Yewell as editor; Yewell was fired within nine months for unspecified reasons. The paper's editorship turned temporarily over to Ben Fulton, a long-time contributor. Later Saltas announced that Fulton's editorship would be permanent.
As the paper gained popularity and staff, the load on John Saltas decreased. In 2003 he retired as publisher, naming Jim Rizzi as his successor. Rizzi, with over 20 years of alternative weekly experience, was groomed for the position. Saltas had hired him as a vice president in 2002. After being uninvolved with the paper's operations for several months, Rizzi and Ben Fulton asked Saltas to contribute a weekly column. Saltas now writes a light-hearted, somewhat blog-like column called "Private Eye" where he talks aimlessly about his favorite Utah Jazz players (especially Carlos Arroyo), his Greek heritage, and jokes that he's soon going to be fired.
The Salt Lake City Weekly is currently available at over 2000 locations.
[edit] Editors
- 1984 - 1992: John Saltas
- 1992 - 1996: Tom Walch
- 1996 - Oct 2002: Christopher Smart
- Nov 2002 - Aug 2003: John Yewell
- Aug 2003 - present: Ben Fulton
[edit] Publishers
- 1984 - Nov 2003: John Saltas
- Nov 2003 - present: Jim Rizzi
[edit] The City Weekly and politics
Given its bar-hopping roots, the City Weekly has a liberal, non-Mormon, anti-establishment bias. Some, like Gayle Ruzicka, claim the paper is anti-Mormon and panders to the "homosexual agenda." Others feel the paper gives a voice to Utah's community.
The City Weekly also interacts with local politics.
Apart from covering scandals about former Democratic Salt Lake City Mayor Deedee Corradini, the liberal paper controversially editorialized against her and her associates. The paper often listed her actions as "misses" in the "Hits & Misses" column on the opinion page.
Attacks on district attorney Neal Gunnarson so upset him that he stole hundreds of copies of the paper from off the racks in 1997. Technically, this is theft because only the first copy of the City Weekly is free; additional copies are one dollar each. An article appearing in the issue posited that Gunnarson was being too soft on Mayor Corradini, claiming that his weak prosecution didn't "pass the smell test."
During the 1999 mayoral elections, the scandal-ridden Corradini declined to seek re-election. The City Weekly endorsed Rocky Anderson in a crowded primary. Anderson was an attorney who was once retained by the paper. Facing Stuart Reid, a member of Corradini's administration, Anderson won, but the paper remained neutral during his 2003 re-election.
In 2004, the City Weekly published a series of articles criticizing embattled Salt Lake County mayor Nancy Workman. Workman was acquitted of criminal charges for misuse of County funds, but was forced to not seek re-election by the state Republican Party. In the ensuing election replacement candidate and developer Ellis Ivory was defeated by Democrat Peter Corroon.
[edit] Relationships to other Salt Lake papers
The City Weekly comments extensively on local media through a "media beat" column and letters from the editor.
Of the two daily papers in Salt Lake City, The Salt Lake Tribune and the Deseret Morning News, the City Weekly surprisingly values the LDS Church-owned Deseret News for its investigative reporting in spite of its conservative editorial page.
Saltas has mocked the Tribune's byline "Utah's Independent Voice" by calling the paper "Utah's co-dependent voice." The paper, he points out, is published with the same Newspaper Agency Corporation facilities as the Deseret News through the two paper's joint operating agreement. Thus the City Weekly casts the paper as being "less independent than it pretends to be."
The 2002 Tribune acquisition by Dean Singleton, owner of the nation's 7th largest newspaper chain, prompted an exposé. The City Weekly asserted that increased cooperation and expansion of the two daily papers under Singleton's Tribune leadership hurt surrounding papers' viability.
[edit] Current features
The City Weekly tends to be geared toward a younger, more urban, and more liberal audience than the area's other papers. Some of its more prominent features include its reviews of art films (Scott Renshaw), restaurants (Ted Scheffler), and television (Bill Frost). The founder, John Saltas, writes a train-of-thought column called "Private Eye". The paper has an opinion page which typically has two articles, including one from editor Ben Fulton, and "Hits & Misses". The paper has a satire column called "DeeP end" written by D. P. Sorenson who, among other things, jokingly claims to have been Mitt Romney's missionary companion.
Other syndicated features often seen in free alternative weeklies include the Straight Dope, Free Will Astrology and comics such as Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World, and Keith Knight's K Chronicles.
The City Weekly also publishes a yearly Best of Utah guide and the "SLAMMy" Awards, a music guide (see also Music of Utah).
